Stealing Eden
by Kevin Nauta
Summary: Lynda's rescue from the burning Junior Gazette triggers unintended consequences that forever alters her life and those of her friends
1. Default Chapter

stealing Eden, PART ONE  
  
The world was at first a blurred set of images to her. Ideas that seemed disconnected, shapes that didn't fit together in any coherent pattern. She grabbed on to the first one she could lay hands on and clung to it with all her might. My name is Lynda. Lynda Day. A good name, she thought. Short, sweet and to the point. My name is Lynda. I am editor of the Junior Gazette. Another image flew by. Fire. Burning. I was there, she thought. I was burning. More images. More names. A face of a boy she once knew. He was burning. I was burning. She closed her eyes. She wasn't dead--at least she didn't think so. Did she dream these images? She wasn't at first sure. She opened her eyes again, and the world became a little more clear.  
  
She was lying in a hospital bed, but the room looked strange. No windows, she observed. This couldn't be the Norbridge hospital--it didn't look right. There wasn't any hospital equipment to be seen. No noise could be heard from the corridors. Nothing could be heard at all, except for a low hum emanating from the lights. The room had a table beside the bed and a chair in the corner. Over the chair were draped some clothes-- not hers, she observed, but then she was only wearing an oversized Oxford shirt and she suddenly felt very insecure. Where was she?  
  
Faintly she could hear footsteps in the corridor outside. They became louder, and she pulled the blankets on the bed up around her. Finally, the feet entered the room and Lynda saw they were attached to a woman with short black hair and dressed in a leotard and very short shorts. With that hourglass figure, it was a good thing Spike was not around, or she'd be having to knee him in the groin to keep him from drooling. Where is he? Where am I? Lynda hiccuped--loudly.  
  
"You're awake," the woman said. "How are you feeling?"  
  
"Lost," Lynda replied sullenly. "I don't remember much of how I got here. Or where here is."  
  
"I'm not surprised. You inhaled a lot of smoke before we found you, and when we tried to rescue you, you became quite hysterical. The Doctor had to sedate you." The girl stuck out a hand.  
  
"My name is Peri, by the way."  
  
"Lynda Day," Lynda replied as they shook hands. Then Lynda furrowed her brow. "I do not  
  
get hysterical," she said in a raised voice.  
  
Peri looked annoyed. "Whatever," she said.  
  
"Now tell me where I am," Lynda said. "This doesn't look like a hospital. You don't look like a nurse, so what's going on?"  
  
"Well," Peri began clumsily, "that's a bit of a long story."  
  
"I've got all day. I'm stuck in bed. Humor me."  
  
"Your building was on fire, and you were trapped, remember?"  
  
"Yeah," Lynda said. "I remember. The exits were blocked. I tried to get out the back way, but then there was this blue box.....Something of Colin's, I expect. It was in front of the door, and I couldn't move it. The door opened and I fell inside." Lynda closed her eyes and thought a moment. "That's all I remember clearly. The rest is sort of jumbled. Doesn't make sense."  
  
"That's where things get a little bit complicated," Peri said, staring off into the corner absent-mindedly. "You're still inside that blue box. And orbiting Mars, for all I know."  
  
A voice from the corridor boomed out, "Earth, Peri. Earth. Do try to get your planets right."  
  
At that moment, a garishly dressed man entered the room wearing an outfit that simply defied description. Not even Tiddler dressing in the dark could come up with an orange and red plaid coat, green and yellow striped pants, and a blue polka-dot bow tie! Lynda looked at him and shook her head.  
  
"Damn, why do I always get held hostage by clowns?"  
  
"Clowns?" sputtered the oddly dressed man. "Are you implying my clothes fail to meet your approval?"  
  
"Not only is that the worst looking outfit I have ever seen," Lynda said, "the wearer leaves a great deal to be desired, too."  
  
Peri stifled a giggle, and the man shot her an evil glance. "You, I take it, are the famous Lynda Day. I am the Doctor."  
  
"Doctor who?"  
  
"In some quarters."  
  
"And you rescued me," Lynda said.  
  
"I most certainly did."  
  
"Rubbish," Lynda said. "If you don't have a name, you must be one of Colin's flunkies, which explains what the box was doing in his office. What's your game, then?"  
  
"Game?" asked the Doctor incredulously.  
  
"Game," Lynda spat angrily. "Fire insurance? Rescue the poor damsel to sell papers? Real estate salesman looking to sell us a new building? Bah, wouldn't surprise me if you had something to do with the fire."  
  
"You think I burned the place, you spoiled little brat? I don't believe I'm hearing this."  
  
"How dare you! Get out!" Lynda jumped out of the bed and pointed towards the door.  
  
Peri began motioning at Lynda frantically, playing some sort of game of charades from Lynda's view. This wasn't as important as the Doctor, who was continuing to protest vehemently.  
  
"Out?" he screamed. "Out? This is my ship. Nobody tells me to get out!"  
  
Peri was getting more insistent. "Lynda," she began.  
  
"What IS it!"  
  
"You might want to button that."  
  
Lynda looked down at the shirt and turned beet red. The Doctor looked at Peri. Peri looked at the ceiling, and then gave up trying to contain herself. She pushed the Doctor out into the corridor laughing all the way, at least until she had to dodge a chair flying out into the corridor. Peri noted the clothes were thrown in the hall, too. A sheepish Lynda stuck her head out and asked if Peri could hand them back in. Once the door had closed, Peri doubled over in the corridor laughing.  
  
"So you wanted to meet the famous Lynda Day, Doctor." Peri chuckled. "Are you satisfied yet?"  
  
Clearly the Doctor was not. "Threw me out of my own TARDIS dispensary! Did you see that?  
  
I have never met anyone so insufferable as Lynda Day, reporter."  
  
"Have you tried looking in the mirror lately," Peri asked with a sweet smile.  
  
After about a quarter of an hour, the door to the room opened and Lynda walked into the corridor. "Excuse me, I believe I was fighting with this gentleman," she said brusquely.  
  
"Did the clothes fit?" Peri asked. Lynda glared at her. "You look fine, Lynda. You aren't running a newspaper today anyway."  
  
"I want to be running a newspaper," Lynda said. "There is so much to put back together, and I have to do it."  
  
"Well, until you thank me for saving your life AND apologize to me, you are staying right here."  
  
Lynda grew angry at the Doctor and started to protest, but he continued talking right over her. "You can't walk out of here. You are currently on board my ship, and it is orbiting the Earth whether you wish to accept it or not. Four little words, Lynda: Thank you; I'm sorry."  
  
"No, never, not a chance," she snapped. "That's five. I've never heard such rot. Orbiting outer space in a police box? What do you take me for?"  
  
The Doctor walked away down the corridor. "The world thinks you're dead, Lynda Day," he called out to her. "They're going to bury you, bury the Junior Gazette, and go on about the business of life. Sarah will take the train home for the funeral, will console your friend Spike, and the two of them will fall in love and get married...."  
  
"And who's fault is that?" Lynda yelled after him.  
  
"Yours!" came the distant reply. "Four little words....."  
  
Peri stood there watching it all with a bewildered grin on her face. Lynda had followed the Doctor down the corridor screaming at him. For once it isn't me doing this, she thought. She shrugged and set off after them. Eventually, she found them in the TARDIS console room. The scanner was on and pictured a serene Earth turning quietly in space. The Doctor was quiet. So too Lynda, who just stared at the screen.  
  
"Oh God," she whispered, "it's true. It's all true."  
  
Peri walked over and put a hand on Lynda's shoulder. "The Doctor is a Time Lord, and this craft can travel anywhere in time in space. He's not human."  
  
"Two things I can't stand," Lynda said under her breath and remembering the late Virginia Hume, "are aliens and Americans."  
  
"Well," the Doctor replied, "I'm not American and Peri's not alien....." Lynda turned and gave the Doctor a puzzled glance. "Oh, I read that in a book somewhere," he said off-handedly. "Spike was very clever with a phrase."  
  
"You know Spike?" she asked. Time travel, she thought. Damn it; he's seen the future. "That bit about Spike and Sarah...."  
  
"It could happen, in a world without Lynda Day," he said simply. "Can you give the story a better ending?"  
  
"I don't know," came the very quiet reply.  
  
Lynda didn't apologize that day, or even the next. I can't do that, she said to herself, and I don't know why. She had not seen much of the Doctor, who seemed to be avoiding her deliberately. Peri had given her a tour of the ship, which seemed to go on forever. Impossible, really, but Peri just shrugged and said "dimensional transcendence" as if that answered the question. Peri knew as little of things as she did on that score. Peri had been rescued from drowning and wound up a passenger aboard the TARDIS for some time--for a time traveler, she seemed remarkably vague as to her own life. She'd seen enough weirdness and death to last a lifetime, to listen to her talk of her adventures. Lynda wasn't really sure what to make of Peri. Peri seemed as argumentative at times where the Doctor was concerned as she was, and Peri seemed unsure what to make of him. Something about him being different in a past life, and said with enough wistfulness to make Lynda think Peri had loved the Doctor once.  
  
Lynda had taken to reading in the vast library in the TARDIS to keep her mind occupied. The Doctor was a great collector of information, although his filing system was impossible to decipher and it seemed as though the books on the shelves moved about of their own volition when her back was turned. That she didn't really understand much of what she read didn't really matter. Anything to keep her mind occupied. Anything to forget, if only she could. She missed Spike, and missed him terribly. She was beginning to understand how Spike had felt when he'd almost died in the gas explosion on the Creswell Road. Life took on a new perspective when you came close to dying. She'd not learned that after the bank vault fiasco, and someone or something was trying to get her attention more forcefully this time. She was playing with a being that had the power to rewrite history, and playing very badly. She didn't hear the Doctor enter, and jumped a little when he spoke.  
  
"Thinking, I see."  
  
"Yeah," she replied without much enthusiasm.  
  
"Four little words...."  
  
"I wish I could."  
  
"Well, it's a start," he said. "I have something for you. You can't read it, but it might interest you." He tossed a book at her, and she caught it without even thinking. She looked at the cover....  
  
"Damn," she said in awe. "My autobiography?"  
  
"You'll write it in the year 2012. It is very interesting reading, Lynda. You'll lead a full life."  
  
"If I ever get home," Lynda said.  
  
"That's up to you," he said. "Always has been."  
  
"Doctor, I've wanted something like this my whole life," she said, holding up the book. "I've wanted to know what was going to happen to me. To know whether I was doing the right thing or not. And you say I can't read it!"  
  
"That's not possible. You can't live that way. Not even I know what happens to me in my future. That's forbidden knowledge, and not something I feel the need to burden myself with."  
  
"Spike always wanted to know if I loved him," Lynda said. "Sometimes I did. But I couldn't tell him because I didn't know how it would all end. If it was going to wind up hurting us both, why live through the pain?"  
  
"If this is avoiding pain, I suggest you find an elevator shaft to fall down. You might feel better."  
  
"I tried fire," Lynda said quietly. "Doesn't work that way."  
  
"There are no guarantees in life, Lynda. You can choose to take David's way out of the miserable times, or you can choose to make the best of whatever life brings you. You should enjoy the moments you have with friends, because you never know how long you'll have them around."  
  
"You've lost a few, I take it?" Lynda asked.  
  
"Lost? I've watched some of them die before my eyes. Can you say that, Lynda?" Lynda shook her head. "You beat yourself up over the wrong things and the wrong people. You'll try and rescue a guy holding you hostage and who shot your friend Colin, but you'll let Spike twist in the wind for years. You weep over a blackmailer, yet you drove Kenny away and wrecked your friendship with Sarah because you are petty, conniving, and want the last word in everything."  
  
Lynda's eyes darkened and the Doctor just stared at her. "Nothing is ever your fault, Lynda," he said. "Blame everyone for everything, expect the world and never give of it yourself."  
  
"Do I ever get better at life, or am I always a bitch?" she asked him.  
  
"You'll never be Mother Teresa, if that's any help. But you do get better. Perhaps because you have nowhere to go but up."  
  
Lynda threw the book at him in disgust. He deftly caught it, and grinned. "Safer in my hands than yours," he cheerfully warbled. She buried her head in her hands.  
  
"Can't even get that right....." she sobbed, and said no more for a very long time. She just sat there crying, and the Doctor stood and watched her from a distance.  
  
Peri walked into the room and looked at the Doctor quizzically. "Aren't you going to do something?" her glance asked. He shrugged, as if to say "I've done too much as it is." Peri walked over and sat beside Lynda, giving her a hug which Lynda tearfully reciprocated. The Doctor slipped away quietly.  
  
Lynda composed herself after a time and said to Peri, "I'm ready to apologize now." She looked for the Doctor, but he had left.  
  
"Let's go find him, shall we?" Peri said, and together the two of them walked down the corridors to the console room, where the Doctor stood watching the scanner. Peri cleared her throat as she entered the room.  
  
"Doctor," Lynda began, "I'm not sure why you should have bothered trying to save me. I've been such a pain to you both since I've been here. I'm sorry."  
  
"Apology accepted, Lynda." He turned and walked to the console and began punching in some numbers on a keyboard. "We'll have you home before too long."  
  
"We hope," said Peri.  
  
"My doubting associate excepted," he playfully grumbled. "Lynda, do you know why I am here?"  
  
"Philosophically or geographically? I thought you had to rescue me; isn't that why you came to find me?  
  
"Rescue you?" the Doctor chuckled. "No, you aren't that important to the scheme of the universe." Lynda growled at him. "You see, Lynda Day, you happened to dedicate your book to myself and to Peri; and as we hadn't actually ever met you, we sort of had to make the introduction to complete the circle, shall we say? Would you like to read what you wrote?"  
  
"Who ever reads the introductions to books?" Lynda asked sarcastically?  
  
"Oh, you might just want to," he said. Peri was smiling broadly as she watched this.  
  
"Have you read it, Peri?"  
  
"Yes, Lynda. I know what you're going to do."  
  
The Doctor flipped her the book. "Don't even think of peeking anywhere else, Lynda." She opened the book and read:  
  
  
  
THE INTRODUCTION  
  
I'd finished the manuscript and handed it over to my editor. She asked, "Where is the introduction." I said, "Who reads introductions? Waste of time." She said "Don't you have anyone you want to thank?"  
  
"Not really," I said. "I did all the work, and if I thank Spike, it'll go to his head." She said, "Thank somebody or else. Make up someone if you have to, but just do it before I strangle you here and now." So here I am.  
  
Once upon a time, I met a wandering alien physician and his human companion while orbiting the Earth. He told me to straighten up and fly right or I'd lose everything that ever mattered to me. He was right about all that. True, I am still a bitch. I love being a bitch. It is what I do best, and how I've gotten to be so famous, some idiots pay me a couple million to write about what a bitch I am. I'm really a nice bitch, when I choose to be, and I choose to be a lot more often than I once did. Maybe that's not a great personal improvement, but I'm livable now, and only half the people I meet want to kill me.  
  
So, thank you Doctor and Peri for looking after me. I'm sorry for all the trouble I've caused, and I'll buy you two dinner next time you're visiting Earth. By the way.....Lynda, when you read this, here's a hint for you. The next time you see Spike, I have a message for you to give him. Three little words....  
  
When Lynda saw what those three little words were, her mouth dropped open in disbelief.  
  
  
  
There was a great deal of laughter in the TARDIS console room that night. Lynda was sitting in a chair getting her second make-up job of the evening. She had just finished scaring Colin Matthews out of his new job and back into her employ at the Junior Gazette, with a little help from the Doctor's holographic projector and some very convincing special effects. Now she was wearing the dress she'd had on while trapped in the fire, and having Peri make her up with some soot the Doctor found in an old stove buried in some supply cupboard found somewhere in that endless TARDIS of his, as well as faking a nasty cut on her cheek.  
  
"You look terrible," the Doctor smiled. "Well done, Peri."  
  
"Ugh," Peri chuckled. "She smells terrible, too. This is the strangest way I've ever seen anyone  
  
pick up a guy before."  
  
"You know Spike," Lynda said with a grin. "I want to be looking my worst for him."  
  
"Lynda," Peri asked, "are you really going to..."  
  
Lynda shrugged. "This is all insane, but who am I to argue?" She turned to the Doctor. "Colin's hair won't always be white, will it?"  
  
"I think it was just residue from the flash powder," the Doctor said. "I don't think we could scare him that well."  
  
The console stopped bobbing and the Doctor flipped the scanner on. The exterior was a darkened room, but nothing much else could be seen. "Time to go, Lynda," he said.  
  
"Are you coming with me?" she asked.  
  
"Certainly not," he replied--surprised even to be asked. "We would be intruding on a very personal moment."  
  
Peri piped up "Normally I'd agree, but this is so weird...."  
  
"....You want to see how it comes out," Lynda finished her sentence. "I have nothing to hide, and I'd like to make sure I'm in Spike's house on the right date at the right time and not in 1622 or on Venus. That way, if you're wrong, I can wring your neck, Doctor."  
  
"Have a little faith, please, Lynda." The Doctor reached for a lever and pulled it. The door slowly opened. Lynda hugged Peri and wished her well. She then smiled at the Doctor.  
  
"I owe you one, clown," she said, and then gave him a passionate embrace and kiss before walking through the doors and out of the TARDIS.  
  
  
  
"So, do you still think you're dreaming," Lynda asked Spike after he'd kissed her.  
  
"I don't think so," he replied. "I've never had a dream that smelled this bad before.  
  
"I've been thinking a lot," she said.  
  
"Thinking's good."  
  
"I know how you felt when you almost died."  
  
"You've said that before."  
  
"Some of us are slow learners. We have to keep dying to learn our lesson."  
  
"You're just lucky you got back."  
  
"Yes, I am." She kissed him. "So, who else have you told I was dead?"  
  
"I called Kenny, and Sam, and Sarah.....but most of the news team already assumed it.  
  
They couldn't find a body in there. It was burned so badly, we all just assumed...."  
  
"It's okay. I'd have assumed, too." Lynda was quiet for a few seconds. "You called Sarah?"  
  
"Sarah would have wanted to know. She's on her way in from university. She insisted."  
  
"Well, she'll be very surprised. Should I jump out of a closet and scare her?" Lynda asked with an innocent look on her face.  
  
"Lynda....." Spike said, "You might wind up dead for real if you do that."  
  
She smiled. "Remember those three little words you always wanted me to say?"  
  
Spike smiled. "Yes. Would you like to say them now?" he said, as he pulled her closer.  
  
She kissed him. "No." Spike looked puzzled, and perhaps a little angry. "I thought of  
  
three different ones."  
  
"Which are?" he asked.  
  
She swallowed hard and looked over Spike's shoulder. There, peeking around the corner of the door were Peri and the Doctor, trying ever so hard not to be noticed. Then she relaxed.  
  
"Spike," she began.  
  
"That's one word."  
  
"You can count!" she said proudly.  
  
"And you can stall," he said tiredly.  
  
"When I'm done, I'll let you have the last word. Just this once, 'cause I'm feeling generous after dying."  
  
"Very nice of you, Lynda. The other two words, please."  
  
"Marry me," she said simply. She waited for a reply. Spike looked absolutely stunned and said nothing. "For the record, when presented with the chance to have the last word, Spike Thomson said nothing." She kissed him again, looked at the clock, and shook her head. "Poor dear, it'll be light soon and then you'll know you weren't dreaming. I'm going to get myself cleaned up, fix you breakfast, and then we've got a story to write." As she got off the bed and began to leave the bedroom, Spike finally spoke.  
  
"Which story? The Gazette's, or ours?"  
  
From somewhere in the house came a strange wheezing and groaning, prompting Lynda to roll on to the bed, laughing herself silly. Spike looked at her with utter amazement. "Our story is right here, Spike," she said, as she showed him a certain book that the Doctor was somewhere in the universe searching his pockets for at that very moment. 


	2. Chapter 2

STEALING EDEN, PART TWO  
  
When Spike Thomson awoke on "The Morning After"--as it would always be called whenever it was discussed--his first reaction was to see if he'd dreamed Lynda Day. No, it was no dream. He still smelled the smoke of her singed clothes; very strongly he thought. He looked at the clock, which said it was just turning 6:30. He could hear Lynda's voice in the background.  
  
"Mum, it's me. Mum, stop screaming. I'm fine. Mum, don't believe anything you hear about me being dead. Yes, I know. I know they said nobody could get out. Its a long story. Say, I need you to do a favor for me. I got as far as Spike's, and I remembered I lost my keys to the apartment in the fire. I'm going to need some clothes and stuff. Yeah, bring it over here. I've got a surprise to tell you, too. No, you come here. I'll have to tell you in person. Trust me. I love you, too."  
  
Spike got out of bed and wandered out into the next room. Lynda had gotten as far as getting a shower, and she was wearing one of his bathrobes and still dripping a little water on the carpeting. The coffee pot had been turned on and Lynda had tried to make some toast, but had burned it rather badly. Lynda hadn't heard him at first, and was only aware of his presence when she suddenly felt him embracing her from behind. She allowed herself a warm smile, opened her mouth to speak, and then changed her mind. Let Spike have the honors, she thought.  
  
"I had the most amazing dream," Spike began.  
  
"Really?" Lynda asked coyly.  
  
"I dreamed that Lynda Day was standing in my kitchen wearing only a bathrobe and burning my toast."  
  
"I was on the phone listening to my mother scream a lot. I forgot."  
  
"You're so beautiful, Lynda. Did you really propose to me last night?"  
  
"Crazy, wasn't I?"  
  
"I'll let you take it back if you want to," he said.  
  
There was silence. Spike held his breath. Lynda held hers. Now or never, she thought.  
  
Spike let go of her. In that instant, Lynda viewed a universe of options and possibilities flash before her and made her decision. "To think when I met you, I hated you."  
  
"Shallow, show-off American," Spike quoted from memory.  
  
"You left out lame-brained," Lynda replied with a smile.  
  
"And now we're here," Spike said.  
  
"Yes, we are." Lynda looked at her watch and smiled. "This is all going to seem strange when the rest of the news team shows up and I have to go back to being Vampira again. Kenny was right. Being nice does grow on you."  
  
"Then don't go back, Lynda. Be someone different now that you've had a second chance."  
  
"I am the editor of the Junior Gazette, and I have a newspaper to run. I can't be 'nice' and successful." She paused for a moment and looked at her watch again."  
  
"Are you expecting someone, Lynda?"  
  
"Yes," she said. Then she pushed Spike up against a wall and kissed him. Hard.  
  
From somewhere in the background came the opening of a door . "Spike?" the voice called out. "Are you okay? The door was open and I....." The voice stopped and a loud thud was heard. Lynda ended the kiss and walked over to where Sarah Jackson had fainted in the middle of the room.  
  
"Nice to see you again, Sarah," she said. "Have you met my fiancé, Spike?"  
  
"Don't you think you should do something here, Lynda?" Spike asked as he walked over to join her.  
  
"Find a good hiding place for that book of mine," she chuckled. "This is too much fun to be legal."  
  
Someone half a universe away agreed and picked up a phone.  
  
  
  
The crowd in Spike's apartment had grown by two members. Sarah was sitting in a chair being fussed over by Lynda's mother. Spike was watching the morning news on a small television set, drinking a cup of coffee and glancing from time to time at Lynda, who was on the phone scaring people, and enjoying it. Though her mother had brought some clothes along, she still had not changed from Spike's bathrobe.  
  
"Mr. Kerr," she purred. "I read in the paper this morning that I had died. That was very silly of you wasn't it?" With great flourish, she hit the speakerphone button and Kerr's voice filled the room.  
  
"Lynda....." he stammered. "How did you get...."  
  
"Out? If a gunman can sneak out of the building---If Colin Matthews can get out of the building without anybody knowing it, why can't I do the same thing? Sloppy, Matt. Very sloppy."  
  
"Why didn't you get in touch with someone?" he asked angrily. "Some kind of publicity stunt to sell papers? Let everyone think you're dead and then show up at your funeral?"  
  
"What a great idea," she dead-panned. "Here's another one. You're going to see to it that we get whatever we need to get the next edition of the Junior Gazette out and on time or I'll sue you and Bobby Campbell from here to the moon and back by lunch time. I'll see you this afternoon to set up the details."  
  
"But Lynda...." Kerr's reply was cut off when Lynda slammed the phone down.  
  
"I've always wanted to hang up on him," she said to no one in particular. She walked over to Sarah and knelt down beside her. "I wasn't aware I had such a powerful effect on people."  
  
"Sorry," Sarah mumbled. "Haven't gotten used to meeting dead people yet." Sarah looked over at Spike. "I could have sworn you said she was dead, Spike. If you two were in on this to trick me...  
  
"Shhhh," Mrs. Day told her. "Talking will make you feel worse. Drink your tea." She turned to Lynda. Spike caught a glimmer in Lynda's eye.  
  
"Uh, this might not be the right time, Lynda..." he began.  
  
"Nonsense. It's as good a time as any, and I have to get back on the phone. I asked Spike to marry me, and he said yes."  
  
Sarah choked on her tea. Mrs. Day looked at Lynda and smiled. "The Spike Thomson? The Spike Thomson who you said was a lousy, two-timing, no- account jerk you wanted to torture and kill?"  
  
"That's not true!" she said with mock indignation. "I used at least three expletives in that sentence." She looked distracted for a moment. "Spike, are you taping the news for me?"  
  
"Yes, Lynda," came the exaggeratedly disinterested reply.  
  
"Anything interesting?"  
  
"Somebody broke Sophie and Laura out of prison. Trains are late out of Norbridge station. Campbell Media's facing a possible hostile takeover. You're dead."  
  
"I am? Just checking. I want to gloat later, when I have time."  
  
"You proposed to Spike?" Sarah asked. "I'd pictured it as happening the other way around."  
  
"He looked about like you do after I did it. I decided I didn't want to lose Spike....I saw a glimpse of what life would be like in the future. Something told me it had to be this way, so I did it and I'll see to it that Spike Thomson never leaves me again."  
  
"Nor will I," piped up the fiancé ,"If you keep wearing that bathrobe around the house."  
  
"Should I quit shaving my legs, Mum? I think he's staring at them."  
  
"I guess I don't have to jump out of windows when people come around now, huh?" Spike and Lynda's mum shared a conspiratorial glance. Lynda and Sarah were smiling, too.  
  
"Enough happiness for one morning," Lynda suddenly said. "Time to get the team together."  
  
Colin Matthews was a wreck. He had not slept at all, nor had he shaved. Sometime during the early morning, he had left his apartment and gone down to the burned out remains of the Junior Gazette building. There he stood, watching the steam rise from the ashes and the water drip from the burned out superstructure. Four years of his life, gone, soon to be followed with his soul, which a demon bearing Lynda's visage had come to him and claimed during the night. "Buy your way out of this one, salesman," he said to himself. As the morning went on, he was no longer alone. Polly, one of the newer hires to the staff, came by. She had only just begun working there, and seemed to be a little shocked to have it all end so suddenly. Tiddler and Kate arrived soon after. Nobody knew where Julie was--she wasn't home or wasn't answering. Frazz and Kevin were shooting pictures and doing interviews at the scene. Jane, Martin, and Jeff had only just come by. Everyone stood and talked amongst themselves, pondering the mysterious phone calls they had received summoning them here. Except for Colin, that is, who was barely noticed by the others, and seemed to be inhabiting his own little personal Hell that no one wanted to intrude upon.  
  
A taxi pulled up to the site, and Spike and Sarah emerged from it. The crowd quickly flocked to them, excited to see Sarah and expressing their concerns about Spike's well-being and his grief. After listening to the babble for a bit, he raised his hand, cleared his throat, and made an announcement."  
  
"Everybody, I want you to know I'm okay. In fact, when I looked in the mirror this morning, something absolutely amazing was staring back at me." The crowd murmured nervously. Sarah smiled. "Not me," he chuckled. "Her." He pointed at the taxi.  
  
Lynda was getting out. She'd gone through the pile of clothes her mother had brought and managed to find the worst possible combination to wear. "For old time's sake," she'd said at the time. Now she looked at her team, or what there was of it. "Emergency staff meeting, 1 PM at the main Gazette building," she shouted. "Does anybody know where Julie is?"  
  
Nobody seemed very interested in that. Those who were there were too busy running over to greet her. Kate gave her a hug, which Lynda seemed surprised by, but accepted. Everyone was asking a million things, and Lynda gave up trying to get anything done. She was surprised by what she saw. As much fighting as she had done with these same people, they had all been through a lot together and Lynda only now understood that she meant something to them. Lynda knew where Julie was, and was preparing to deal with that in good time. Colin had slipped away, and Lynda wondered where.  
  
"She's going to be very unhappy when she finds out you didn't renew the insurance policy, Colin," a voice whispered in his ear. "I think we should have a little chat about that, don't you?"  
  
Colin whirled around to find himself staring at three people dressed in some kind of military uniforms. United States Army, he guessed, as the uniforms weren't British, and the speaker's voice had a distinctly American accent. The voice was a man's, and a young man--surely no older than Colin himself--stood in the middle of two women, who each had a small green object strapped to their belts.. Two women who looked a lot like....  
  
"Sophie and Laura," he barely could whisper.  
  
"Shouldn't have sold us down the river," Laura said. She pulled a gun from inside her uniform and pointed at him, as did Sophie.  
  
"That's enough, you two," the man said sharply. "Put those away. Broad daylight--do you think this is America?" The two women did as he asked. "Now, Colin," he continued. "You've seen my associates don't like you. But you are a man of business, as am I, and I'm going to make an offer you can't refuse."  
  
"I don't seem to have much choice," Colin said glumly.  
  
"Oh, no. You'd take this deal in a minute, guns or no guns. It is just a matter of, um, formalizing our position. Let's all pop off for a quick bite to eat and discuss the matter."  
  
They walked down the street and entered the newly re-opened Czar's, found an empty table and sat down. Colin sat on one side of the booth, while the three strangers sat on the other. "Don't you think it is sort of obvious sitting down in a restaurant with two escaped criminals?" Colin whispered across the table.  
  
"Seeing isn't always believing. I have a little parlor trick of my own going. You'd be able to sell a million of them if they ever become declassified. Only you can see their real appearance, and that is because I allow you to. Your editor used something along the same lines to scare you last night"  
  
"How do you know all this?"  
  
"I have good contacts. I read a lot. So does your friend Lynda, and that's rather a big problem for my employers."  
  
Colin felt himself warming to the topic. "Employers?"  
  
"Employers," the man repeated. "You sold her out to the Sherrington Herald. Perhaps you'd like to help us--in exchange for us saving your lousy butt on a fraud charge."  
  
"Fraud? I'll have you know that I am an honest..."  
  
"Stuff it, Colin," Sophie said. "You sold out-of-date food to nursing homes and defective prams to expectant mothers. Why should pocketing the Gazette's insurance money be out of character for you?"  
  
"I'm hurt that you don't trust me after all the fun things we mates did," Colin began.  
  
From under the table, two clicks were heard simultaneously. Both Sophie and Laura had cocked their weapons, and the man in the middle grunted. "You're not selling, Matthews."  
  
"I see that," Colin said nervously.  
  
"Here's the deal. I have in my pocket a check for four million pounds, payable to the Junior Gazette. That will make a nice insurance settlement, and doubtless some extra pocket money to ensure you cooperate with us when we need you. Nobody has to know you spent the insurance money. And you certainly aren't going to make that mistake again, are you?" Colin nodded his head.  
  
"We understand each other. In a very short time, Bobby Campbell is going to be forced to sell the Junior Gazette to me. I am going to take a keen interest in the Junior Gazette and in its editor, Miss Day. Good day, Colin. I know you will do the right thing."  
  
"Or else," Sophie and Laura said in unison, giving their joint cute- little-girl smiles which looked rather misplaced on not-so-little girls.  
  
"This is a first," Kate said to herself. "Lynda Day late for her own staff meeting."  
  
"Yeah, who wants to suggest she dock her own pay?" Tiddler replied. "Spike?"  
  
"I'm waiting to see if she really does sleep in a casket first," Spike chimed in.  
  
"I'm sure she does," sputtered Julie. "Do you know what she did? Poured a bucket of cold water over my head to wake me up. Picked the damn lock on my apartment door to do it, too."  
  
"Where were you, anyway?" Spike asked. "Lynda was trying to get in touch with you this morning."  
  
"I must not have heard the phone," Julie said evasively.  
  
"Lynda picks locks now?" Tiddler asked. "Where did she learn how to do that?"  
  
"Must have read it someplace," Lynda said, breezing through the room and inserting herself into the conversation at the opportune moment. "Quiet!" she yelled.  
  
The room took a few moments to quiet down. By now, most all of the Junior Gazette staff had made it to the offices of the senior Gazette building. Word was getting around that Lynda had not died, and Bobby Campbell hastily arranged a news conference to break the news officially. Lynda had taken no questions and offered no explanations publicly. She had just run up the stairs from the press conference to hold her meeting, with Matt Kerr in tow.  
  
"Matt, you wanted to make a few remarks?" she asked him.  
  
"Yes, thank you, Lynda." He paused to collect his thoughts. "First, it is good to have you back from the dead...." He was interrupted by a round of applause, which Spike was prominently leading. "The next few editions of the Junior Gazette are going to be handled from this building. We'll find some space for you somewhere, and you'll have access to our facilities to get the job done. This will be a down-sized version of the Junior Gazette--we don't have the facilities to run two papers here, and until you can get a deal of your own worked out for temporary facilities of your own, that is how it will remain. Finally, I cannot promise you there will continue to be a Junior Gazette. That's something you'll have to take up with whomever winds up in control of Campbell Media Enterprises...."  
  
The rest of his words were drowned out in a chorus of shouts and groans. Lynda shouted everyone down and asked a question of her own. "Who is buying Bobby out?"  
  
"My understanding is that a group of American investors is. Something called the Marriner Group. I'm not familiar with them." Kerr said. "We're checking on that."  
  
"So will we," Lynda said testily. "Kate, get Billy Homer on the phone and get him working on it." Kate was up and out of the chair before Lynda could finish the sentence. Good old Kate--always reliable. Colin, on the other hand, looked like he'd swallowed a lemon.  
  
"Colin, I want to hear how you're going to have the insurance company contacted today. We're going to need the settlement money s soon as possible." Lynda said. "You did pay the bill, right?"  
  
"Um, that's sort of complicated." Colin stammered. "Something has come up...."  
  
Spike grabbed Lynda, who was already beginning to tense up. "Colin," he said, "What has come up?"  
  
"The settlement has been made. The money is already in our account."  
  
"Then what's the problem?" Spike asked.  
  
"The Marriner Group paid the settlement."  
  
"What happened to our insurance company?" Lynda asked.  
  
"A small cashflow problem. I was meaning to pay the bill, but then...."  
  
"Colin," Lynda screamed. "You idiot! You've just sold the whole damn paper!"  
  
"I didn't have a choice...."  
  
"How much, Colin. What were we worth to you this time?"  
  
"They gave me four million pounds for the building. I assume some of that was to cover incidental expenses, too. Cost of doing business and the like."  
  
"How much of it have you spent, lodged, or invested so far?" Lynda asked sarcastically..  
  
"I am shocked that you would even suggest such a thing," Colin yelped. "Don't you know me better than that?" A roomful of eyes rolled at this, and Lynda threw up her hands in disgust.  
  
"Speaking of sellouts, where is my assistant editor?" Lynda spat as she wandered over to stare down Julie, "You could have been out here giving orders this morning, getting the news team ready for this story. Instead you were passed out on your sofa. What the hell good are you in that state? Thank God Kevin had the gumption to get his camera down here to take some pictures or we would not even have anything to show for this. Thank God Frazz is out interviewing people. Maybe they ought to be sitting in Kenny's chair and not you. Kenny would never have spent the night--"  
  
"You bitch," Julie sputtered, but Lynda cut her off.  
  
"Just like the Gaz, Julie. You threw in with the wrong lot just to feather your own nest. You always do what's best for Julie Craig, not the paper. Consider yourself fired!"  
  
"Lynda," Kerr shouted, "Have you lost your mind? For someone that was playing dead, you sure have a lot of ideas about what was supposed to be going on in your absence. How the hell are they supposed to know what to do when you make all the decisions for them?"  
  
"They've had three days to get their act together, and look at them." Lynda suddenly stopped herself. Damn, I've messed that up.  
  
"Three?" Kerr looked at her strangely. "The Junior Gazette building burned last night. What happened to you, Lynda?"  
  
"That's, um, kind of hard to explain...."  
  
"I don't think you're quite all here. Julie Craig was here at the Gazette all night helping us with background. Background on you, for the obituary we ran. You never read it, Lynda. You couldn't be bothered because you were feeling too damn superior to know how much people cared. Lynda, consider yourself relieved of duty indefinitely until you get yourself under control. Julie, you have control of the paper until I say otherwise."  
  
"Thank you, Matt," she said triumphantly and glared at Lynda.  
  
Lynda broke down and wept uncontrollably. Spike was at her side trying vainly to console her. Kerr and Julie glanced nervously at each other and just as quickly looked away. The rest of the room merely watched in sadness and horror as the most powerful personality they had ever met dissolved before their eyes.  
  
  
  
Sarah had stopped home to see her parents briefly after leaving Spike's that morning. She didn't bother going to the news team meeting, and felt a little strange at not being invited. She reminded herself that the Junior Gazette was in her past now; and that afternoon, she caught the train to return to college in London. This was an unusual voyage, as some dignitary or other had arranged for an extra car to be added to the train for personal use. This had confused the stationmaster, who wasn't used to dignitaries or extra cars fouling up his schedule. Sarah heard some rumblings about it mentioned by the passengers waiting at the station, but passed it off as not her concern. A limousine had pulled up at the station, and a group of three military officers emerged, greeted by the stationmaster. Old Burgess McFadden had been in the British Army before leaving to become station master, and he briskly saluted the soldiers as they exited the car. The lead officer saluted in return and briskly shook Burgess' hand. Sarah noted the three soldiers--a man and two women--were quite young and didn't seem to look just right for military roles-- something odd about them. Then one of the female soldiers happened to glance at her; and in an instant, recognition passed between the two. Laura Wilmot, Colin's young helper from their days in school, waved to Sarah, and tapped the other girl on the shoulder and pointed in Sarah's direction. The other girl smiled and waved--Sophie Jenkins, the other member of the unholy trio. When the senior officer inquired what was going on, the girls whispered something to him and pointed in her direction. The officer motioned for Sarah to join them, and she did, more out of curiosity than anything else.  
  
"This is a surprise. I've heard a lot about you, Sarah."  
  
"You have me at a disadvantage, sir. I know your companions, but I've never met you."  
  
"Silly me," the man said. "Lt. Col. Paul Marriner, United States Army liaison, United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. Bound for London?" Sarah nodded. "Why don't you join us in the private car? Sophie and Laura seem to want to catch up on old times...."  
  
"Why not?" My lucky day, Sarah thought.  
  
They boarded the train. The coach was opulently decorated and seemed very spacious for a railroad car. The stationmaster stuck his nose in the car and said there had been a message arrive for him. Marriner invited the stationmaster in and bade him to sit down while he looked over the message.  
  
"I thought you were going to fly us back to London, Colonel?" Laura asked.  
  
"We'll fly soon enough, you two. Last I checked, they hadn't put in an underground from London to New York." He finished the message, quickly scrawled a reply on the back, and handed it to the stationmaster, who smartly saluted and left the car. Marriner closed the door to the car.  
  
"This might be of interest to you, Sarah. I understand Lynda Day has been relieved of duty as editor of the Junior Gazette."  
  
"What?" Sarah thought a moment. "How on earth would you know that, and why would you care?"  
  
"I did say I worked for an "intelligence" taskforce. Knowing things is my business. I also have a large fortune which I have to squander in order for it to remain manageable, and hence I like to buy things."  
  
"Like Campbell's media holdings, you mean?" Sarah smelled a story falling into her lap.  
  
"Right first time. Care for a drink?" Sarah shook her head no. "I don't either, but I do keep a stock for entertaining. Guests, not staff."  
  
From the background, a pair of voices whined "Oh, come on! You never let us have any fun."  
  
"I do not need a pair of drunken sixteen year old escaped convicts serving as guards. I'm paying you well, and if you wish to get plastered, do it when you aren't on duty."  
  
"Yes, about that," Sarah interjected. "They're supposed to be in jail. Why are they working for you?"  
  
"Intelligence, my dear Sarah. They know the Gazette operations, they know the personnel, they know the area, and they were framed in the first place. Call it combining necessity and justice if you please."  
  
"We did a story on them. They were arrested along with a bunch of bikers at a warehouse fire a year ago. The verdict was arson to cover up a stolen auto parts chop shop."  
  
Sophie and Laura wandered over and joined the conversation. "Colin was buying cut rate parts from these guys," Laura said. "We were supposed to pick them up."  
  
"Only they were stolen," Sophie said bitterly,. "and the warehouse was a front for some other activities."  
  
"And that's why..." Laura was about to say something, but a quick glance from Marriner shut her up.  
  
"Classified, sorry." Marriner said apologetically. "My associates tend to get carried away. Youthful inexperience. Another of my acquaintances had a hand in that explosion, but alas Miss McShane never got around to bailing Sophie and Laura out. I shall have to remind Dorothy of that someday."  
  
"Whenever she has the time," Sophie grumbled, and she and Laura left to go to an adjoining room.  
  
The train gave a jerk as it began to leave the station. Sarah sat down on a large royal blue sofa and took in her surroundings. She noticed a large portrait on the wall--a young blonde woman in a beautiful wedding dress.  
  
"My late wife," Marriner said simply.  
  
"I'm sorry," Sarah said. "She was very beautiful."  
  
"Yes, she was." Marriner looked wistfully at the portrait. "Her name was Jennifer, and we married in high school. She was nineteen when she died, and there hasn't been a day since then that I haven't thought of her and cried at least a little."  
  
Sarah wasn't sure what to say. "Was she ill?"  
  
"Murdered."  
  
"Oh," she said quietly. "I'm not doing very well in this conversation, am I?"  
  
"Could anybody, Sarah?"  
  
The two of them sat beside one another and didn't say a word for some time. After a while, Marriner closed his eyes and fell asleep. Sarah just sat there and watched him.  
  
Spike had called a taxi and taken Lynda home with him. He didn't trust her to be alone in her current state, and she had put up no fuss. She had said little all morning, and seemed to be just barely keeping herself together during that time. Tiddler had called asking about Lynda, and Spike had called Lynda's mother, who would soon be on her way over.  
  
In a way Spike would always think of as eerie, Lynda suddenly switched herself back on before his eyes, got up out of the chair she'd been slumped in and began pacing.  
  
"That didn't go according to the book," she muttered. "Julie's lying."  
  
"Lynda, let it be. Kerr said she was at the Gazette. Anyway, how would you know?"  
  
Lynda shook her head. "Spike, you have to trust me. You don't show up with a biography from your own future without having a little something unusual to tell. I know things I'm not supposed to know."  
  
"You're not making sense, Lynda. What happened to you?"  
  
"You'll never believe me, Spike. You think I'm crazy now."  
  
"Tell me, Lynda. But this had better be good."  
  
She did, and it was.  
  
"What are they doing, Laura?"  
  
"He's asleep. She's on the sofa watching him," Sophie said.  
  
"Still? I'd have thought she'd try to phone the newsroom by now. She's going to spoil the game if she sits there mooning over him."  
  
"I guess we move things along then, Laura." Sophie walked over to the bar and started pouring herself a drink, rattling the ice cubes.  
  
Sarah's ears perked up and she turned to see what was going on. "I thought he told you no booze?" she whispered.  
  
"He's asleep, so what he doesn't know won't hurt him any." Sophie said.  
  
"Where did you two sneak off to, anyway?"  
  
Sophie and Laura exchanged glances and muffled giggles. Sarah raised her eyebrows and decided she really didn't want to know. Some things never changed in that respect.  
  
"What do you think of him, Sarah," Laura asked with a twinkle in her eye.  
  
"I don't know. I've only just met him."  
  
"We saw you watching him sleep. We sort of thought...." Laura began.  
  
"...And he is kind of cute," Sophie chimed in.  
  
"...And single." Laura finished.  
  
Sarah smiled a little, almost in spite of herself. "I suspect Mr. Marriner has a lot more on his mind than me. After all, I'm only here because you two know me."  
  
"Like we care about you!" Sophie chuckled. "You're here because he wants you here. He knew you'd never come on board with a stranger, so we played along."  
  
"Why me, Sophie? I'm just Sarah Jackson, university student."  
  
"But a damn good reporter," Sophie said.  
  
"Loyal to a fault," Laura added. "and smart where and when it counts."  
  
"Could be a job opportunity here for you, Sarah." Sophie said.  
  
"Or a relationship," Laura smiled. "Or maybe even a story."  
  
"Yeah, could be, I suppose," Sarah said, clearly warming to the idea. "But I've got the university to contend with. I can't just pick up and go chasing off after something he hasn't even offered me yet."  
  
"Then we need to get him to offer you a deal. Once he does that, he'll have the university begging him to take you on any terms you offer. They might even give you an honorary doctorate or something." Laura said.  
  
"Universities don't work that way, Laura," Sarah reminded her.  
  
"Maybe you're not as smart as I thought. You can buy anyone or anything for the right price. Colin taught us that, and Marriner's just better at it than anyone else in the whole world."  
  
"Should we tell her?" Sophie asked Laura.  
  
"Why not? No skin off our backs, just don't say where you heard this. "He's got an honorary commission from the Army. He's no more a soldier than we are, but he gives the Pentagon an invention or two to play with, helps fix the occasional alien life form problem when needed, and spends the rest of his time wandering aimlessly now that his wife is dead."  
  
"Alien life form," Sarah repeated the words slowly.  
  
"United Nations Intelligence Taskforce," Sophie said. "Very secretive lot. Deal with any monsters that come calling, that sort of thing."  
  
"How secretive can they be if you two know about them?"  
  
"We're bodyguards," Laura said simply. "If any monsters come around, we're the ones with the guns."  
  
"And have you seen any aliens," Sarah asked them skeptically.  
  
Sophie and Laura looked at each other and smiled. "Yes," they said in unison. "So has Lynda Day. You might want to ask her about it sometime."  
  
"Marriner certainly wants to." Sophie added, and finished her drink.  
  
"I don't believe either of you. This sounds like something Colin would dream up. Like the time you and he were running around dressed like space turtles...."  
  
"Eeeew! Bad memory!" Laura made a silly face.  
  
"Horrible," Sophie replied.  
  
"People don't just come back from the dead on a lark, Sarah," Laura said. "If Lynda did, maybe she had a little help?"  
  
Sarah looked troubled. There was something very wrong with the picture being painted for her. Was it the picture that was phony, or was it her conception of reality? "How do you know all this, you two? Marriner just got you out of jail, you can't possibly know everything there is to know about him in an afternoon. If he is a secret agent, he wouldn't go blabbing all that stuff to you."  
  
"Oh, we've been with him longer than an afternoon, wouldn't you say Sophie?"  
  
"Several months, I would say."  
  
"But that's not possible if you were still in jail yesterday."  
  
Sophie smiled. "Were we?"  
  
Laura chuckled. "It is so hard to keep dates straight. What does the Colonel call that? Rela---"  
  
"Relativity of time, I think," Sophie answered back.  
  
At this point, the train juddered to a halt sharply. Sophie fell to the floor, dropping her drink as she fell. Laura flew backwards into Sarah, and Sarah fell over the top of the sofa, landing on top of Marriner and knocking them both on the floor of the car. Marriner groggily opened his eyes and looked at Sarah, who was lying on top of him.  
  
"That's the first time I've gotten a wake-up call quite like that one," he said absent-mindedly.  
  
"Just when I get one headache fixed, I get another one," Sarah muttered to herself.  
  
"Me or the fall?"  
  
"Sorry?"  
  
Sophie and Laura had picked themselves up and come over to check on Marriner. When they saw the position Marriner and Sarah had landed in, they began snickering.  
  
"Sarah!" Laura exclaimed. "And on a first date, too. Shame!!!!"  
  
"What are you talking about?" Sarah asked, and then realized what they found funny. She looked at Paul, who was trying very hard not to laugh. She quickly got up, blushing noticeably.  
  
"Okay, you two delinquents, why don't you go see what caused that little bump in the road and be useful for a change." Marriner smilingly ordered.  
  
"I thought Sarah was the bump in the road," Laura chuckled.  
  
Marriner threw a couch cushion at them. "Now!"  
  
"Yes, sir!" They saluted and marched out of the car.  
  
"Good help is so hard to find," he sighed.  
  
"Is that an offer?" Sarah asked him.  
  
"Could be," he said. 


	3. Chapter 3

stealing Eden, part three  
  
The phone in Spike's apartment jingled to life, and Spike grabbed it on the second ring.  
  
"Spike, how is Lynda."  
  
"Mad as hell, Sarah," Spike replied. "She made a fool of herself and Kerr suspended her."  
  
"So I hear," Sarah replied. "I'm not in a position to talk much right now, but I'm sharing the train to London with Lt. Col. Paul Marriner of the Marriner Group."  
  
"Marriner Group? And just how did you manage that?"  
  
"Sophie and Laura's doing, not mine. They're working for him."  
  
"What?"  
  
"There's no time. Spike, has Lynda been in contact with anyone or anything unusual?"  
  
"Besides Colin?"  
  
"And you...." Sarah chuckled. "No, I'm thinking of something alien. Don't laugh, Spike, this is serious."  
  
"I'm not laughing. Lynda seems to think she has. I'm not sure whether I believe her."  
  
"Then be warned. Marriner's working for UNIT."  
  
"UNIT," Spike asked?  
  
"Gotta go, someone's coming." The phone went dead.  
  
"Billy Homer on line three," Polly called out.  
  
"Got it," Julie said. She picked up the phone. "You took your time. Anything good?"  
  
"Julie, you wouldn't believe the half of it."  
  
"Well, enlighten me."  
  
"There are a lot of rumors about the Marriner Group, but it seems largely to be a shadow corporation made up of a lot of holding companies that own stock in a wide variety of industrial firms. Most of them are high technology companies, and primarily American ones, at that. Very few holdings on this side of the Atlantic, and nothing I've been able to find in the media business."  
  
"Kerr said the guy they were dealing with was named Paul Marriner, and was negotiating his own deal without any lawyers. Quite unusual," Julie noted.  
  
"Lots of things about him are. First, Paul Marriner is 25 years old. He's an officer in the US Army, though I can't find any record that he ever served any time. Just the granting of his rank. Whatever he does is classified. His primary base of operations was someplace called Fort Mitchell, outside the city of Cedar Rapids, Minnesota. Married in 1986 to Jennifer McKellar, the daughter of a local Marine Corps veteran."  
  
Julie did some quick math in her head. "He would have been in school when he married. Pretty young these days. I assume his commission came afterwards?"  
  
"Another mystery. Commission dated March 14, 1980. Must have been a real prodigy."  
  
"Prodigy or not, I can't see the Army letting a kid join, let alone making him an officer. Must be a typo. Has to be."  
  
"Ready for the final mystery?" Billy asked.  
  
"Okay, shoot."  
  
"Exactly. July 4,1989. Marriner and his wife were assassinated by terrorists while riding in an Independence Day parade. His wife died instantly, he lived for a few hours."  
  
"Then the Marriner over here is a fake!"  
  
"I had a newspaper in the States fax a photo here. I'm sending it to you. The two Marriners look nothing alike, except for being blonde, if the picture of him in the London Times is legit."  
  
"Then what's the game? Why try to keep the name of a dead man alive with an obvious phony?"  
  
"Obvious to us, but if Marriner hasn't done much business outside America, nobody would know. Whoever he was, he kept a low profile."  
  
  
  
Sarah had quickly terminated her call as Marriner, Sophie, and Laura strolled back into Marriner's private car. They had gone forward to find out what had happened to the train, which had suddenly stopped moving. Marriner was clearly troubled by something. May as well find out what, she thought.  
  
"Problems?" she asked him.  
  
"Problems." He replied tersely. "There has been a minor derailment of the train. No one hurt seriously, I'm glad to say, but this will not help British Rail get back on schedule today."  
  
"In a hurry to get somewhere?" she asked.  
  
"Not particularly. When you're rich, time can be rather meaningless."  
  
"Or relative, I suppose," Sarah blandly answered.  
  
Marriner looked puzzled. "Now why would you say that?" He turned to Sophie and Laura, who shrugged. "Relativity is an important factor in the study of time, but I hardly think that gets taught much in physics classes these days."  
  
"Never understood much of that stuff anyway," Sarah said simply. "But if we're going to be working together, I should know something about this."  
  
"Fair point. Let's begin by answering a question that's puzzled you since you walked in, but were much too intimidated to ask. 'Why is this railroad car so roomy?' Would you like to know the answer to that?"  
  
"Yeah, it does seem a little big to ride on the rails."  
  
"Bigger on the inside than out."  
  
"Something like that." Sarah said, "Except that things aren't that way."  
  
"Nothing on Earth quite like it, you'd say," Marriner responded. Sarah nodded.  
  
"Well, then, it must follow that this isn't from Earth."  
  
"Venusian railroad car maybe?" Sarah skeptically asked.  
  
"Gallifreyan, actually. One picks up things in the procurement business."  
  
"Alien railroad stock? I can't believe I'm having this conversation."  
  
"Nothing like a skeptic. There are always Sarah Jackson's in the world who never wish to believe anything on faith." Marriner plopped down on the sofa and invited Sarah to join him. She did.  
  
"Now, look at Sophie and Laura," he continued. "They aren't nearly as smart as you are nor have a quarter of your talent. But they are willing to believe miracles can happen, so they accept a railroad car bigger inside than out and go about their business."  
  
Laura piped up. "Who cares if its bigger inside than out anyway?"  
  
"I do," Marriner said. "It would be rather crowded in here if it were not."  
  
"I believed in a lot of things growing up. I thought my parents really cared about me and didn't see me as something to make them look good. I thought some guy out there would really love me as a person. I thought what I did as a writer would change the world. No, I don't believe in miracles, Colonel. I've been let down too many times."  
  
"Faith without challenge is very shallow faith indeed, Sarah. You must learn to look at things more broadly." Marriner looked thoughtful for a moment. "And if I told you that you weren't sitting inside a railroad car bound for London at the moment, you would say 'That's ridiculous.' If I were to tell you this was an alien ship capable of traveling anywhere in time and space, you would believe me a complete lunatic and walk off the train to go back to university and become a nice functional non-entity. Why? Because you hadn't the courage to believe in big things and dream big dreams."  
  
"So if I were to demand a demonstration that this is indeed an alien ship, would I still be without faith?"  
  
"You'd be seeking an answer, and seeking is the first step to faith. Not everything you see and hear is true, and you have to be able sort out what's real from what isn't. That's discernment, and that will always be an asset to you."  
  
"But I'm a reporter. I do this for a living."  
  
"And you're skeptical of everything now. Mayhew taught you that. Raymond and Gary taught you that. Today, I'm going to teach you something new. This way please."  
  
"How do you know about Raymond and Gary?" Sarah asked him.  
  
"Intelligence reports," he said simply and nodded at Sophie and Laura.  
  
Marriner got up from the sofa and walked through a door Sarah swore hadn't been there when she'd entered. He stuck his head back out and urged her to follow. "Time machine headquarters," he said from inside the room.  
  
Sarah walked through the door and had every illusion she'd ever had about life shattered. Sophie and Laura, who were content to hang about in the background for much of Sarah's conversation with Marriner, just smiled at each other, remembering what their own introduction to a TARDIS was like. Five minutes later, with the train crew occupied in removing the passengers from the front cars of the train, no one noticed until later that the rear car had mysteriously disappeared.  
  
  
  
Julie Craig had been sitting at her desk looking over some of the early work done for the next edition of the Junior Gazette. Kevin's photos had been developed; stories were being planned dealing with the misreporting of Lynda's death, the hazards of overburdened electrical outlets, and the future of the Junior Gazette; and then there was the sticky problem of how to deal with Lynda. Lynda's story would have to be part of the next edition, but how to tactfully get her to tell it when she had been sent home in disgrace was a bit of a problem. Most of the staff had gone home. A few of the street reporters who had been out working late had come back to the office and were preparing to depart. Tiddler was still around, too. Julie had needed someone to step in as assistant editor, and Tiddler had offered. Truth be told, Julie would have chosen Spike, but Spike was in the unenviable position of having to try and keep Lynda occupied, and Lynda would make everyone's life miserable if Spike was editing and she wasn't. Tiddler it was, then.  
  
Matt Kerr strolled into the temporary Junior Gazette headquarters and headed for the meeting room. He motioned Julie and Tiddler to join him. Julie nodded her assent. They entered the meeting room and closed the door.  
  
"What's the news?" Julie asked.  
  
"Bobby Campbell's breathing a little easier now that Paul Marriner doesn't want to take his empire apart piece by piece.."  
  
"Marriner backed down?" Tiddler asked.  
  
"Yes and no," Kerr replied. "Marriner decided he wanted to take his offer off the table and pursue some different options. He put up a new offer that Campbell accepted."  
  
"And the new offer?" Julie asked.  
  
"Marriner wants the Junior Gazette very badly. Campbell decided it wasn't worth the aggravation not to let him have it. Bobby thinks he wanted the Junior Gazette all along and would have bought the whole of the company just for that one bit."  
  
"Why would you buy a whole company just to get control of us?" Tiddler asked. "We're not even a big money-maker for Bobby Campbell."  
  
"Bobby asked him that. Marriner said that he saw a lot of potential in the Junior Gazette as an educational tool and the current staff clearly impressed him."  
  
Tiddler frowned at this. "I wonder if he's looking at going back to how the paper was originally designed? Before Lynda and Kenny put together the deal to take us commercial."  
  
"Wouldn't surprise me if he did, but he could be thinking of running the paper as a non-profit, too. You'll just have to see." Kerr then allowed himself a smile. "You haven't asked who your new boss is."  
  
"Not Marriner?" Julie asked.  
  
"Not directly," Kerr said. "He's a military guy, not a publisher. So he found himself someone familiar with publishing. Sarah Jackson is part owner and managing director of the new Junior Gazette." This caught both Julie and Tiddler by surprise.  
  
"How in Heaven's name did she do that?" Tiddler asked.  
  
"Just lucky, I guess," Kerr shrugged. "They happened to ride the train back to London together and got to talking about the Junior Gazette. She offered some opinions, he liked them, he hired her. End of story."  
  
"Matt, how do you explain Marriner being reported as dead?" Julie inquired.  
  
Kerr shifted uneasily in his chair. "We were told it was a mistaken report. Marriner's credentials are all in order--the American embassy said so."  
  
"And the fact that the dead Marriner and the living one don't look at all alike?" Tiddler asked him.  
  
"Is a problem, I'll admit," Kerr answered. "Look, we're dealing with somebody who is hip deep in military secrets as far as the US Government is concerned. There aren't a lot of answers anyone will give you, no matter how good a reporter you are."  
  
"Matt, this is a story, and it is going to get killed because the target is willing to buy the paper to shut us up," Julie exclaimed. "Doesn't that strike you as ominous?"  
  
"You don't think Sarah will defend you?" Kerr asked.  
  
"I don't think Sarah can defend us," Julie sighed. "Lynda would fight to her last breath, but Sarah? I just don't know."  
  
  
  
Spike had nodded off on the couch watching the evening news on television. When he awoke, it was past midnight and the light was still on in the bedroom. He got up and walked over to the bedroom, peeking nervously in. Lynda was still awake--running on adrenaline, he assumed, as she had been awake the whole night previously. He knocked at the door. Lynda turned, and seeing Spike there in the doorway, smiled.  
  
"Spike, if you don't get some sleep, you're not going to be much use to me tomorrow."  
  
"In case you hadn't noticed, Boss, you're in my bedroom. I can't very well sleep while you're hard at work."  
  
"Never stopped you in the newsroom," she gently reminded him.  
  
"True," he conceded, "But you need your rest, too. Have you even slept at all in the past twenty-four hours?"  
  
"No," Lynda said. "And its been closer to forty-eight that I've been awake. Too much is happening, Spike. Too much, too fast."  
  
Spike happened to see her notebook computer beside her and looked at what she was doing. She had dialed up the web page of an underground newspaper called "The Truth." "Truth" was not a secret--it was occasionally mentioned in passing, but usually as a joke because it promoted the idea that aliens were real and were actively trying to take over the Earth.  
  
"New career venture?" he asked.  
  
"Don't be silly," she said. "There's a lot of foolishness here, but I'll bet some of these stories could be true. I've even read interviews of people who claim to have met the Doctor. Take this article," she said, pointing to the computer. "Career soldier, gets transferred into a secret United Nations division, and runs up against some killer mannequins. The Doctor foils the alien intelligence behind the plot."  
  
"A story written anonymously to protect the writer's identity. Very credible." Spike said dismissively. His eyes happened to catch sight of something disturbing as they flicked across the page.  
  
"UNIT," he said.  
  
"United Nations Intelligence Taskforce," Lynda said. "Very hush- hush. They're mentioned now and again in the underground press."  
  
"Sarah told me UNIT was involved with the Marriner Group. She wanted to warn you."  
  
Spike then told Lynda of Sarah's telephone call and what she'd related.  
  
"So I meet up with an alien, and UNIT wants to meet up with me. No, doesn't make sense. The Doctor is known on Earth; why should anybody find my having met him any big deal?"  
  
Spike frowned at this. "Lynda," he said, "You took something from the Doctor, remember?"  
  
"Yeah, a book....about the future." Lynda suddenly realized what Spike was driving at. "No, Spike, nobody knows of it but you and I and the Doctor and Peri. Nobody could know."  
  
"Would the Doctor try and get the book back?"  
  
"Not like this." Lynda gave Spike a hug. "Spike, stop worrying. You want to protect me and hide me out someplace until all this blows over. That's exactly what they'd want you to do to me, so that they could say I was despondent and just disappeared when nobody was looking. The best thing to do is hide in plain sight and let everybody know we are alive and kicking. If anybody is trying to get me, they can't do it in front of the world."  
  
"Can't?" Spike raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Well, it will make it damned hard to do so, at any rate."  
  
"So now what do we do?"  
  
Lynda thought for a moment. She closed the file she was working on and shut off the computer. "First thing to do is get some sleep, then tomorrow we go tell the world you're going to be Lynda Day's fiancé."  
  
"And that solves the problem?" Spike asked.  
  
"As Tiddler once told me, they've all been following this dopey story from page one. Let's give them something new to keep them thinking of us."  
  
"You aren't going to go back to your apartment all by yourself, are you?" Spike asked as Lynda put her computer away.  
  
"I should stay here with you?" Lynda chuckled. "That would be rather unseemly of me, wouldn't it? People might get the wrong idea about us."  
  
"It would be safer, Lynda. That's all I'm saying. I'll sleep on the couch."  
  
"Do I get a good-night kiss?" Lynda asked innocently. Spike leaned over to oblige, and Lynda hit him with a pillow. One pillow fight later, they collapsed in each other's arms and fell asleep in each other's company.  
  
Somewhere in the night, Julie Craig dreamed of dead men walking. Bobby Campbell dreamed of being sold as a slave by someone with the power to control the world. Spike and Lynda dreamed of each other. Billy Homer watched a bus bear down him for the thousandth time. Kate and Kevin watched in the dark as the lights of New York City greeted their plane. Julie had sent them off to discover what had happened at an Independence Day parade in 1989, without telling Matt Kerr a word of her intentions. As for Sarah Jackson, she was watching the sun set on the horizon of a deserted Australian beach after spending the day swimming and sunbathing with Paul, Sophie, and Laura. She was too awake to dream, but wondered as the night fell whether her life was now a dream come true, or if Paul was dreaming for her now. The Sarah Jackson who stepped on a train car in Norbridge was fast disappearing, and she wasn't sure whether she should feel afraid or liberated. 


	4. Chapter 4

stealing Eden, part four  
  
Cedar Rapids, Minnesota is not well known to most Minnesotans. Nobody in Cedar Rapids particularly minds this. The last census counted 12,472 residents in the town, not counting the 422 soldiers who call the Army Proving Ground at Fort Mitchell home. Cedar Rapids is proud of its heritage as a farming community and the grain elevators are probably the most recognizable feature in the town. If you want entertainment, you have your choice of whatever sport is in season at the high school, the local movie theater, or fishing in the Cedar River. There are five police officers in the town, who keep the drunks out of the gutter and the high school kids from cruising the streets at night in their cars. American flags fly everywhere in the town. Tourists are always welcome, particularly strangers with odd accents who stumble off the bus looking completely lost, which is quite an appropriate description of Kate and Kevin, roving reporters for the Junior Gazette. Julie had told them to go find out something about the new owner of the Junior Gazette, and bundled them off on a plane in the middle of the night mysteriously. Colin had asked to go, but Julie had refused to spare him. Marriner's financial people were due in the next morning and only Colin knew the state of the finances from one minute to the next. Anyway, Marriner had phoned and asked a favor of him and Colin found whatever it was--neither Kate nor Kevin knew--to be sufficiently interesting enough to put any thoughts of America out of his head completely.  
  
"So what's the plan, then?" Kevin asked, as he grabbed his suitcase.  
  
Kate shook her head. "Julie was supposed to have rooms reserved for us, so I guess we check in the hotel and get settled. Then we start sniffing around." She grabbed her own suitcase.  
  
Kevin had walked out of the bus station and noticed immediately that the hotel was directly across the street from the bus station. "Nothing like small town simplicity, Kate," he remarked. "No long cab rides, no parking meters, and no traffic jams."  
  
Kate joined him and looked at the hotel. "That's it?" she said haughtily.  
  
"I don't think we've got much of a travel budget left, Kate."  
  
"If we had any less, we'd be sleeping on park benches." She walked across the street. "Typical," she muttered to herself, though loudly enough for Kevin to hear. "Kate gets the second string again while Julie gets all the glamour back home. New editor, old editor, no difference."  
  
They walked into the hotel and up to the front desk. Kate rang the bell on the counter and an old gray-haired man wearing thick horn-rimmed glasses came puttering out of a back room."  
  
"I hope our reservations came through. My name's Kate Roberts, and this is my associate Kevin Maxwell."  
  
The old man sized the two of them up. "You must be the newspaper folks from Britain," he said. "What's Paul done this time?"  
  
Kate and Kevin exchanged mutual glances of surprise. The desk clerk looked vaguely amused at this. "Lord, I'm not one of those television psychics. Your editor called ahead and used the company credit card. Usually reporters are a lot sneakier than that, but you're welcome here anyway."  
  
Kate muttered an obscenity under her breath. Kevin deliberately stamped on her foot and said "Col. Marriner bought our newspaper this week, and we're sort of curious about him. Lots of rumors about, you know."  
  
"Rich and powerful mystery man?" the desk clerk suggested. "Seems to intimidate people very easily? Walks around like he owns the world?"  
  
"That's him," Kevin said.  
  
"He's dead." Kate said simply.  
  
"Oh, you've heard that one, have you?" The clerk fumbled around in his pocket and pulled out a cigar, which he proceeded to light. After indulging in a smoke, the clerk smiled. "Well, Kate and Kevin, everything you heard is true. He's rich, powerful, intimidating, and he died. Pity that, I was very fond of his wife. Good kid she was. Used to see her in the restaurant next door having a soda with her friends when she was in school. Damned terrorist shot 'em both in the middle of a parade." The clerk took another turn at his cigar.  
  
Kate tried waving the fumes away without much success. "Pardon me for stating the obvious, but if he's dead, how is it he...."  
  
"Shucks, I thought you'd figure that out yourself," the old man said. "Dead people don't buy newspapers very often. That sly fox is so smart, he brought himself back from the dead, he did."  
  
"Wearing some other body?" Kevin asked.  
  
"Not my place to go telling people how to run their business," the clerk said simply.  
  
"And you aren't the least bit bothered by someone coming back for the dead?" Kate asked incredulously.  
  
The clerk took another smoke. "Now, I grant you that is unusual. If you live around here, you take the unusual for granted. Father Olsen said that if Jesus of Nazareth could do it, maybe Paul was on good enough terms with the Almighty to arrange something. I've never argued with a priest before, and I am not about to now at my age."  
  
"Strange things are normal here?" Kevin asked. "This looks like a typical American small town, based on what they show on the television."  
  
The desk clerk put down his cigar and laughed hoarsely. "Them's the towns you have to look out for, son! Only here, people's cows get blown up by mistake. Kids my grandson's age suddenly turn geniuses overnight. People disappear. People die and come back to life." The old man shrugged. "All in a day's work around here. We just mind our own business and let Paul Marriner mind his."  
  
"Nobody questions this?" Kate asked. "Not even outsiders?"  
  
"Depends on what you mean by outsiders. Press folk like yourselves, they don't believe me. Think I'm some kind of gooney old man that checked his brain at the door with his dentures. UFOlogists, paranormal investigators and such--they dig this place. Hold their conventions here in my hotel. Even have a seance in the back room now and then, if the spirit moves 'em..." He chuckled at this. Kevin and Kate even allowed themselves a smile between them. "Roswell of the Midwest we are, though the mayor never promotes that as our town slogan."  
  
"But people dying....surely that must cause some stir." Kate remarked.  
  
"The only things that die around here are spies, saboteurs, nosybodys, and space monsters. We never kill the tourists. Bad for business, you know."  
  
"Assuming we're not space monsters ourselves," Kevin added. Kate stared at him. "I mean, you can never tell by appearances, can you?"  
  
The desk clerk had another good laugh, and took another puff on his cigar. "Right at home you'll be here, lad." The clerk turned and grabbed a pair of keys from the rack behind the counter. "Rooms 8 and 9, up the stairs and to your left. Ring if you need anything, and I'll have a tour of local spots of interest arranged for you shortly." He handed the keys over to Kevin. Kate grabbed hers from his hand and stalked up the stairs, grumbling to herself.  
  
"Better take the lady's bag up to her, son. Save yourself a second trip later." the clerk said.  
  
"No bellhops?" Kevin asked hopefully.  
  
"Gone to Mars on holiday. Sorry" the old man said, and strode off.  
  
Julie Craig had settled into her temporary office chair behind her temporary office desk and surveyed the newsroom she now controlled. Things were still very chaotic two days after the fire, and while she liked the idea of herself as editor, the news room felt very different without Lynda's driving ambition to keep the team focused and heading in the right direction. Lynda was a problem. Eventually, once she got her personal problems sorted out, Lynda would demand to return to occupy the editor's chair, and Julie wondered how well the news team would take to having her back. Already, Julie had implemented some changes that she felt would make the team stronger. Tiddler had taken to her job as assistant editor well, and helped keep order when egos clashed. Frazz had written a brilliant piece on the reporting of the fire in the local papers. Julie had made a few suggestions to improve the piece, and Frazz was in early getting the finishing touches on the second draft done. Martin and Jane had taken charge of the street reporting team as de facto directors--Julie was content to let them organize things, as they had been around the Gazette longer than Julie herself had and knew how things needed to run. That Lynda herself would never delegate much authority beyond the assistant editor's chair was a policy Julie intended to change for as long as she was in office as editor. If Julie had any say, that would be a very long time indeed.  
  
Colin was in early this morning, as well--that in itself was an amazing feat. Colin loved avoiding the office before noon, but with Marriner's financial team set to arrive later that day, Colin was busily trying to get the Gazette's financial house in order--or was he? Julie noted he seemed to be on the phone trying to swing a deal with someone for something having to do with televisions. Julie shook her head. Who knew where the Gazette's profits were hidden when Colin was involved? Out of the corner of her eye, Julie noticed someone entering the newsroom. Others in the room noticed the entry, too, and things grew very quiet as Sarah Jackson entered.  
  
Sarah had dressed up a little bit more than she usually did during her days as a writer, opting to wear a blazer and skirt combination that looked reasonably business-like, although Julie noted the fit wasn't quite right, as if it had been borrowed for the occasion. Also borrowed, no doubt, was the pearl necklace Sarah wore. Julie had never seen this, either, and it seemed very out of character for the thrifty and unpretentious Sarah. The most striking feature Julie noted was Sarah's deep tan and sun-lightened blonde hair, which had been completely absent when she'd accompanied Spike down to the fire scene yesterday.  
  
Julie rose from her chair and went to shake Sarah's hand. Sarah looked a little shaken at this, but followed Julie's lead. "You're the boss, now," Julie said quietly. Sarah nodded, and then hugged Julie.  
  
"I may be the boss, but I'm still your friend, Julie." Sarah said.  
  
Julie noticeably relaxed, and the newsroom seemed to heave a sigh of collective relief.  
  
  
  
Meanwhile, Spike and Lynda slept on. In the hallway outside of the apartment, two policewomen waited as a their superior officer chatted with the landlord downstairs. After a few minutes, the detective inspector came up the stairs and faced two very skeptical women.  
  
"Inspector Morse?" Sophie muttered.  
  
"Couldn't you be any more original than that?" Laura added.  
  
Marriner shook his head. "It worked, didn't it? Next time, I'll come up with a nice long pair of Polish names for you lot and we'll see how you like 'original'."  
  
"So are we going in now or what?" Laura asked.  
  
"Absolutely," Marriner said. He turned the door knob and the door quietly opened. He looked at the two girls. "Nice job picking the lock. I'm impressed," he said as he walked into the darkened apartment.  
  
"Do we tell him it was already open?" Sophie asked Laura.  
  
Laura shook her head. "Not a chance." They followed him inside.  
  
The room was dark, but not so dark as to make navigation impossible. The first rays of sun were peeking through the blinds, and Marriner was busily fumbling with some electronic gadget he'd pulled from the grubby pockets of his coat.  
  
"Stupid machine," he muttered. "A chronon detector should register particle decay, right? Everything can't be decaying, so what's the problem?"  
  
Sophie eyed the machine. "Chronon detector?"  
  
"Objects that travel in time give off signature patterns of chronons. Find the chronon, find the book."  
  
"We travel in time, why doesn't it register us rather than the book?" Sophie asked.  
  
"Very simple, the reason is....." Marriner halted for a moment. "I suppose that would be a problem, now that you mention it."  
  
"Plan B," Laura whispered. "You take the bathroom, I'll take the sofa, and you--" and she looked at Marriner and smiled "Put your gadget away, Inspector, and go check his desk."  
  
"I'm supposed to be in charge here," Marriner whispered, and batted Laura on the nose. Laura noted with some satisfaction he did indeed move off to check the desk.  
  
  
  
"So, what are we going to do about Lynda?" Julie asked. "Is she still the editor or not?"  
  
"That depends on Lynda--I haven't spoken with her, yet." Sarah said. She noted Julie's look of disappointment. "Julie, Lynda had certain visions in mind for the Junior Gazette when she took it commercially. She needs to run a paper for adults. She's not the right person to develop talent. That's where you come in, Julie. When Lynda returns, you are going to sit down with Matt and Bill Sullivan and get the old Junior Gazette concept running again with you in charge."  
  
Julie seemed very surprised. "The old Gazette wasn't a money maker. Kerr as much as said so. Why bring it back now?"  
  
"Because the new owner isn't interested in the Junior Gazette making money, Julie." Sarah got out of her chair and wandered over to a window and stared out on the grounds below. "The old Gazette didn't sell a lot of papers, but it got a lot of good publicity and got kids thinking about journalism as a career. I learned so much from the Junior Gazette, Julie, and I want to be able to pass that on to other kids. Why should we be the only lucky ones?" Col. Marriner and I share the same vision in that regard.  
  
"So where does that leave Lynda, if we're going to go back to the old format?"  
  
"Paul envisions several possibilities...." Sarah began, walking away from the window and back towards her chair.  
  
"Paul?" Julie asked, with a raised eyebrow.  
  
"Oops, sorry," Sarah shyly said. "I have a hard time thinking of him as, you know." She blushed a little. Maybe it was more than a little, though the tan masked it somewhat.  
  
"Look at you," Julie marveled. "I don't believe this. You're falling all over yourself for him, aren't you?"  
  
"Maybe," Sarah said, trying to regain her composure. "He's quite a guy."  
  
"What do you really know about him, Sarah?" Julie asked bluntly.  
  
"Enough." Sarah said. "I'm not sure I trust him yet, and I'm trying to make sense of what I've seen of him, and I don't have all the facts, but he has a good heart and has been through hell to get here. But I know enough to want this job and I'll see his wishes are carried out."  
  
Daylight was now much more in evidence outside, and not a trace of the book had been found. The three thieves looked at each other and then at the bedroom door. Paul crept over and quietly pushed it open slightly. "They're still asleep," he whispered. "Do we risk it?"  
  
Sophie and Laura pushed the door open and entered. Marriner shook his head. "Nothing like risk to get the blood going early in the morning," he thought to himself. "To be young and stupid again."  
  
"Took them long enough to get this far," Laura said. She pulled out a tiny camera from her uniform pocket and started taking pictures of the sleeping couple. Marriner looked at her crossly, and she stuck out her tongue at him. "Insurance," she said in a whisper. "In case they're no longer friends someday."  
  
Sophie had wandered around to the opposite side of the bed and was searching a nightstand and not finding anything. In a fit of puckishness, she lifted up the blankets on Spike's side of the bed and peered underneath. "What a cheat!" she whispered to Laura. "I bet they didn't even do anything." Marriner threw up his hands in disgust. "Why did I bring you two along anyway?"  
  
"Well, now we know the book isn't under the blanket," Sophie whispered. "If you're going to search, do it right. Any luck?"  
  
"Not in the closet," Marriner said. "I'm not even sure she's got it here now. We're running out of places to look."  
  
At this point, Spike began to stir under the covers, and in stirring, accidentally kneed Lynda in the stomach. Marriner dove for the closet, and Sophie and Laura quickly hid under the bed. Lynda woke up, looked at the still sleeping Spike and then looked at the clock.  
  
"Seven o' clock?" she muttered. "I should have been up hours ago." She got out of bed, absent-mindedly knocking her pillow on the floor, and left the room. Soon, the shower could be heard in the background and Marriner glanced out from the closet to see if Spike was still asleep. He was, but not soundly, and was stirring more.  
  
"Let's get out of here, you two." Marriner exited the closet and cautiously stuck a head out into the living room.  
  
Sophie and Laura rolled out from under opposite sides of the bed and joined him. All three got out of the apartment and closed the door-- Marriner locking it behind them.  
  
"What a mess," Marriner muttered. "Of all the complete and utter--" he paused and looked at Laura, who was clutching something behind her back. "Now what could that be?" he asked her pointedly.  
  
"Oh, something somebody tried to hide in the box springs under the bed. Sophie saw a hole and thought it might be worth a look." She handed the only known copy of Damn, biography of Lynda Day Thomson, currently existing in this time frame. Marriner clutched it to his breast, and then slipped it into one of his jacket pockets. "Time to get lost, you two. I'm proud of both of you," he said as he ruffled their hair.  
  
  
  
A short time after they had checked in and retired to their rooms, the desk clerk phoned Kevin--not Kate, who was even more disposed not to like him now--and said he'd arranged for someone to give them some background on Paul Marriner's life. "Be in the lobby at 4:30, and she'll be there", he had said. Kate had come down to the lobby half an hour early and was taking in the scenery. The old man behind the front desk was reading a newspaper and was smoking another of his dreadfully stagnant smelling cheap cigars. The maid came through the lobby pushing a vacuum cleaner and disappeared down the hallway to where the first floor rooms were. Next to the lobby television set, two twenty-something guys who looked like they hadn't met with a bathtub in a very long time were watching "Batman" and comparing Robin to Batgirl and arguing which was the better partner. An Indian gentleman sat in a corner meditating quietly. Kevin ambled down the stairs and headed for the television, but Kate steered him towards the door, where a young woman had just entered and gone to speak with the desk clerk. The clerk pointed towards them, and the woman walked over.  
  
"Hi," she said. "I'm Angie Becker. Francis tells me you want to hear some Marriner stories."  
  
Kate and Kevin introduced themselves, but Kate took the lead in responding to her. "We're interested in stories, sure, but we'd like to know who he is and what to expect out of him. He just bought our newspaper, and we don't know what to believe about him or what kind of person he is."  
  
"How much are you offering me for stories?" Angie asked bluntly.  
  
Kate and Kevin exchanged glances. "We're not offering to pay you anything," Kate replied. "We couldn't afford to--we're not a big newspaper, and if Marriner knew we were here, he'd probably fire all of us."  
  
Angie chuckled. "If he doesn't know you are here, he'll find out in due course. Mrs. Fitzpatrick, the bus station attendant will ring him up to let him know if anybody interesting is in town. Francis will, too. Paul made lots of friends here, and he still keeps in touch. He'll know you are here. Count on it."  
  
"Not much cause for optimism, then." Kevin looked downcast.  
  
"Relax, Kevin," Angie said with a sympathetic smile. "I like you guys. You're amateurs compared to the slick big city papers that come here trying to dig dirt and not get caught. Paul loves to match wits with them. So do we little people. We take their money, tell them wild tales, overcharge them on meals and souvenirs, and laugh when they print what we make up and the government denies it. They look silly, we get rich, and they never learn their lesson because Paul is always doing something to get their goat and they want nothing more in the world than to crush him."  
  
"So you'll help us?" Kate asked nervously.  
  
"I can't guarantee I'll tell you everything you want to know, but I'll tell you what I can."  
  
"Great," Kevin said. "When do we start?"  
  
"Not here," Angie said, pointing to the guests. "You never know who is listening in this place. Come home with me, I'll fix us some dinner, and then tell you some tales." 


	5. Chapter 5

stealing eden, part five  
  
Two fax machines spit out the following document within a few moments of each other.....  
  
Julie,  
  
Here's my transcription of our interview with Angie Becker. Kevin and I will have some comments at the end. Read and study, Julie. We've got something here.  
  
Kate Roberts  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------  
  
Kate: "Tell us a little about yourself--who you are; what you do--that sort of thing."  
  
Angie: "My name is Angie Becker. I'm twenty-five years old, and I am a biologist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. "  
  
Kate: "How do you know Lt. Col. Paul Marriner?"  
  
Angie: "We went to junior high and high school together and were in the same graduating class. Paul provided a reference for me when I interviewed for my position with the state. I was never a close friend of Paul's, but I knew his wife Jennifer fairly well and spent some time with them as a result."  
  
Angie: "How do you want me to proceed here?"  
  
Kate: "Start at the beginning, go to the end, then stop."  
  
Kevin: "Tell us about where he came from, first. I think that's what Kate means."  
  
Angie: "Okay, that sounds good. What I'm going to begin with is sort of second hand. You should really get Leslie McDowell to find out about the really ancient stuff. She lived next door to him when he was very young and knows a lot of interesting stuff, but since she works for Marriner Group, I suspect that may be easier said than done. My folks didn't come to town until after this, so I can't vouch for everything personally.  
  
Marriner's folks were killed when he was quite young. Four years old, I think. Double murder, no clues. The only suspect was a strange guy who showed up shortly afterwards claiming to be an uncle. Paul was missing until the uncle showed up, but there were never any clues to link the uncle with the murder, and so they had to let him go. He raised Paul here in town, but kept a very low profile and home-schooled him out of sight of everybody.  
  
Kate: "Does Marriner ever speak of these events today? I'd think he'd be traumatized by this."  
  
Angie: "No. Paul rarely ever mentioned his parents or their death. Jennifer said once she didn't think they even mattered to him at all, but she felt it was because he was so young at the time.  
  
Kevin: "Was Paul able to tell the police anything?"  
  
Angie: "Not that I've ever heard."  
  
Angie: "Anyway, this uncle was a fellow who called himself Dr. Angelus. Really bright scientist or something, and he raised Paul to be just like him. Paul turns out to be a genius, and Dr. Angelus gets Paul noticed by the Pentagon. The Pentagon wanted to have him, Angelus wanted to sell him to whomever bid the highest. Paul played one off against the other and had Dr. Angelus busted for trying to sell him to the Soviet bloc. In exchange for his "services" to the American government, they signed a treaty with him granting him certain rights and privileges to make him happy."  
  
Kate: "Is Angelus still in prison?"  
  
Angie: "I think the government swapped him in a spy deal. I'm not sure."  
  
  
  
Kevin: "What sorts of privileges are we talking about here?"  
  
Angie: "Such as the right never to have to go to school. A driver's license. Cooperation of state and local authorities in protecting his autonomy. Basically, the right to do whatever he liked, as long as Uncle Sam got a better bomb in exchange."  
  
Kate: "And the local authorities agreed to this?"  
  
Angie: "Money talks. Paul bought the mayor, the town council, and the chief of police off. The Board of Education was not amused, and he fought with them for years."  
  
Kevin: "Money? Where does a ten year old get money to buy off politicians?"  
  
Angie: "We never knew. He never said---we used to joke he had a private printing press that he just fired up any time he needed to buy a new part or a new politician. He thought that was funny, and never discouraged that sort of talk.  
  
Anyway, once Paul came home to Cedar Rapids, the school board wanted proof he shouldn't be in school, and didn't buy the idea of a government treaty being admissible as proof of educational ability. So Marriner offered to take any test they could throw at him and pass it. They tried everything from third grade handwriting and story problems to college entrance exams and he passed every one with flying colors. They had to give him a diploma after that, and the University of Minnesota gave him a degree or two when he did the same to them. After he does all this, Paul decides he's going to go back to school with us, but not to learn anything. He wanted to keep tabs on what children his own age were thinking and learning and feeling about life. That's how he explained it to me. I thought he was lonely.  
  
Then a funny thing started to happen. Those of us in his class all began to grow more intelligent. Not to the degree Paul was, but intelligent enough to basically begin running our own lives and using the school as a sort of home base for whatever plans we made. That was true all the way through graduation, and nobody ever figured out how it happened. Some of the class troublemakers started getting drunk, smoking, driving too fast....imagine that among twelve year olds! Paul got a few of his mates together, bought a bunch of police cars and guns, and set about playing cops and robbers for real. When one of the creeps in junior high tried to rape a girl in a stairwell, Paul shot him dead on the spot. That was when I was here, so I know for sure that's no joke. It stopped being just a game then."  
  
Kate: "So you came to be part of the group when?"  
  
Angie: "First year of junior high--seventh grade. My parents moved here from Minneapolis."  
  
Kate: "And did you become highly intelligent?"  
  
Angie: "I don't know about highly! I was an average student, but I started doing a lot better within a couple weeks of coming here."  
  
Kevin: "What was it like for the teachers with kids like these?"  
  
Angie: "We would have lessons and take tests, but it was all sort of a charade. The teachers knew we'd pass them, we knew we'd pass them, so we didn't study a whole lot and showed up for class when we felt like it. Paul would have science experiments going in the lab, and if he needed some helpers, he'd just grab a few friends out of other classes. Or he'd sit in on a teacher's class and critique his or her performance if he didn't like what he heard. Teachers hated that! I was in an English class with Jennifer, when they were first dating, and we were doing Romeo and Juliet. On the day we were going to read the balcony scene, there he was, and Miss Thorston guessed why and had him read Romeo and her, Juliet. You should have been there, you two! To watch two people falling in love play that scene--with all the passion you wished your boyfriend had for you at that age and twenty times more--it was something nobody who saw it will ever forget."  
  
  
  
Kate: "How did he meet Jennifer?"  
  
Angie: "This is one of those cool stories about Paul. He is walking along the hall with the principal after school and hears a violinist practicing in the band room, and really struggling with a piece of music. I'm not into classical stuff, so I don't know what it was. Paul walks in the room with the principal and she stops playing. He tells her to continue practicing, and to concentrate on the notes and have faith in her own abilities. She starts to play, and plays the piece perfectly while he's standing there watching her. The band teacher comes out of his office---he can't believe she's nailed the piece. The principal is applauding. Some of the other students in the room are applauding. Paul smiles at her; she has this stunned look on her face. Then she looks at him and says 'You did that.' He smiles, and walks out of the room. One year later, they married during the half-time of the homecoming football game."  
  
Kevin: "How did he do it? She was the one playing the piece, not him."  
  
Angie: "Yeah, but Paul's not like any other motivational speaker you'll meet. I know somebody who said once that Jennifer told her that when it happened, it was like a switch being thrown and she could feel her something in her mind suddenly understand everything you needed to play the violin well. As if the thoughts were just planted there. When he left the room, however, she still knew everything. I suspect that's true, and how we all got to be good students. He allowed it to be so."  
  
Kate: "Would you say he can read minds then?"  
  
Angie: "I hope not! We all thought he might be able to, because sometimes he'd know things that we were sure nobody else knew. But he could have had the girls locker room bugged and gotten the same information, so how could you know? The scheme wasn't so much taking thoughts out of our heads as putting them in, at least as we saw it."  
  
Kate: "Did Jennifer marry him of her own free will, then?"  
  
Angie: "We all thought so. They were really complimentary personalities, and she was a good influence on him. They enjoyed each other's company and yet had lives of their own. That's why we weren't really worried that he would manipulate her every move. He would go away for a week at a time on Army business and she'd be free as a bird to party with us, and she did often. She was never trapped, if that's what you mean."  
  
Kevin: "What did her parents say about her marrying so early?"  
  
Angie: "Her dad fought in Korea in the Marine Corps, and kept contact with some of the guys at the base outside of town. He loved Paul, and Paul milked that for all it was worth. He'd show up in his uniform to pick Jennifer up for a date and look just like a soldier. (Except for having hair, of course. You couldn't have got Paul to shave his head for all the gold in the world. ) Her dad flipped for this guy. Her mom was scared to death, but didn't dare oppose her husband's approval. They regret it now."  
  
Kate: "The parade, right?"  
  
Angie: "Yeah, Independence Day, 1989. They're riding in a parade when someone opens fire from the roof of Eddie Schechter's barber shop. She's killed, he is mortally wounded. The shooter is busted--a lunatic who thought aliens were telling him to kill the Colonel. And before you say anything, Paul died. Everyone here knows that. He died, got shoved into the morgue, and the very next day, the body is gone and someone completely different but with all the memories of the original is there replacing him. What was anyone to say? He left town soon afterwards, but he's always coming back for visits now and then. People have just accepted him over time as the original. I don't think he will ever come back permanently because he can't face his in-laws knowing he cheated death and his wife could not."  
  
  
  
Kevin: "Have you met him personally? Since he, um, died?"  
  
Angie: "Sure. I know the faces are different, but the memories are all there. The personality is pretty much the same, too, although the new one is very hard to figure out. The biggest thing I noticed is that the old Paul was a lot more intelligent in a bookish way. You had a hard time understanding him. The new one is more flippant, and even a little scatter-brained at times. The new Paul isn't set into one place for very long, and always is wandering from point to point. He's much more emotional, much less demanding, and likes to be on his own. I don't think Paul does much official work for the government now. He's more of a free- lance guy they call in when they have a problem that needs special attention."  
  
Kevin: "Francis likes to talk about him and aliens in the same sentence."  
  
Angie: "Lots of people say lots of things. Only Paul knows the truth now. I think Jennifer may have, and she was always nervous about that sort of thing when it was discussed."  
  
Kate: "So, what are some of the wild stories we would never believe about him?"  
  
Angie: "He lived underground in the middle of a woodland area owned by the city as a nature reserve. You'd drive out to his house on a dead-end road and just as you came to the end of the road, your car would suddenly materialize in an elevator that went down into a parking garage of the biggest house I'd ever seen. Every guy on the physics team said it was absolutely impossible for that house to be located underground, but nobody could prove how he managed the illusion, or if it wasn't underground, where that house was. He or Jen would drive to school some days, or just show up without driving at all and walk out of a broom closet or something equally strange. When he and Jennifer came back from their honeymoon, she looked at least a year older. He once got mad at a teacher who wouldn't let him borrow Jennifer out of a class, and blew up her car in the parking lot in front of her, and then flipped her the keys to a brand new car. The teacher quit the next day. I could go on for days, but that's an example."  
  
Kevin: "If we met Paul on the way back to the hotel, should we be frightened?"  
  
Angie: "Worried, yes. Frightened....well, that would depend on what you were thinking of doing to him."  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------  
  
Kevin's thoughts: I thought she was credible. We've got some names of people from her that we're going to contact to confirm some of the bits of her story. When we talk to a few more people, we'll know for sure what kind of a story Angie was telling us.  
  
Kate's thoughts: I think she's a plant. She's articulate, but she sounds like she's rehearsed this very well. This is too weird, but she doesn't bat an eye at any of it. Everybody here is reading from a script or looks like they've had a few too many drinks at a Trekkie convention. But why go through the charade of faking all this if there isn't something to this story? As a lie, it is pretty strange. There's something here, Julie--I know it. I just don't know what. 


	6. Chapter 6

stealing Eden, part six  
  
Spike rolled out of bed and looked groggily at the clock. Somehow life had gotten out of focus since Lynda's return from the dead. If this would have been a normal morning where he'd overslept by two and a half hours, Lynda would have been on the phone from the newsroom screaming at him and threatening to deliver him bound and gagged to Kerr's office. After the fire, normal mornings no longer seemed to exist, as was obvious when you wind up in bed with your editor and nobody bothers to call you and complain. This certainly struck him as very strange. Perhaps his new job with the Junior Gazette was to make sure Lynda didn't show up for work. Nobody had said.  
  
He wandered out into the living room and picked up the phone, dialing the Junior Gazette number and hearing the notice from the phone company that the line was disconnected. Of course, he said to himself, they'd be at the main building now. He punched up another set of numbers, and after passing through the operator, wound up talking with Julie.  
  
"How is she?" Julie asked  
  
"Calmer now," Spike answered. "She and I are going to go public with our engagement today. I don't think I'll be in to work."  
  
"I wasn't planning on it," Julie answered, sounding strangely relieved. "Has she said anything about coming back?"  
  
"Not really. She's mad at you big time, though."  
  
"Sarah wants to get her position sorted out, so I think we need to get a meeting together and decide----"  
  
"Sarah? What's Sarah got to do with anything?"  
  
"Oh, you mean you haven't heard?" Julie asked, seeming rather surprised. "I thought Frazz was going to tell you."  
  
"Lynda was here, and he didn't want to tell me while she was around."  
  
"Good idea. Is she still around?"  
  
"Out of earshot. Now tell me."  
  
"Sarah Jackson is managing the Junior Gazette for the Marriner Group."  
  
Spike whistled. "How did she pull that one off?"  
  
"Teacher's pet," Julie muttered. "Fortunately, she's letting me run the newsroom while she handles getting the building rebuilt. We should be publishing our post-fire edition in a couple of days. It is coming together very well, under the circumstances. Everyone is pulling together, things are going smoothly, and nobody has been screamed at."  
  
Spike let out a yawn. "Enjoy it while it lasts, Julie."  
  
"It will last, Spike. I look very good in this chair, and I'm not leaving."  
  
"Julie," a voice said on another extension. "How are you and Mr. Kerr getting along these days?"  
  
"Lynda, don't make this worse for yourself."  
  
"I'm sleeping with Spike. How much worse can it get for me?"  
  
"Try messing with me and you'll find out." Julie hung up the phone.  
  
Spike walked into the bathroom where Lynda was brushing her teeth. "Whatever happened to the idea of being nice growing on you?" he asked her.  
  
She spat in the sink. "Did I say that? Don't know what came over me." She kissed him. "Oh, I remember. Well, I'm being nice to you. Doesn't that count?"  
  
"I'm not paying your salary, Lynda."  
  
"True," she said with a glint of wickedness in her eyes, "you just give me my perks." She kissed him again--longer, this time. "Julie isn't paying my salary, either, and if I'm going to grovel to anyone, it won't be to her."  
  
"Why are you out to get Julie?" Spike asked. "You seem to think she and Kerr--"  
  
"Are up to no good." Lynda finished his thought. "Julie has gotten some idea into her head that she knows how the Junior Gazette should be run better than I do. She talks to Kerr behind my back. Kerr's been mad since Kenny and I took the Junior Gazette commercial. He wanted it to be his own little philanthropic showpiece and we spoiled it for him. Put two and two together."  
  
"How do you know she's talked to Kerr?"  
  
"Reliable sources," Lynda said.  
  
"Your book?" Spike asked, with a raised eyebrow.  
  
"I don't need the book for this one. Julie's too stupid to keep secrets without blabbing to somebody. She wanted Kate to back her up, and Kate's smart enough to know how to say 'Yes, Julie' and call Lynda right afterwards. She didn't get to head Graphics because she was talented, Spike. Julie's got her over in America now snooping around on Marriner. She'll give Julie a report--I'll get the faxed copy before Julie does. I'll go to Marriner with it and Julie Craig will be yesterday's news and I'll be editor again."  
  
"You are a devious woman, Lynda Day."  
  
"Count on it, Spike." She paused. "You don't talk in your sleep, do you?"  
  
Spike looked confused. "Not that I'm aware of."  
  
"Thought I heard voices," Lynda said. "Nothing important. How is it you and I have both been in front of a mirror for five minutes and you haven't made a joke about it yet?"  
  
Spike made a theatrical squint at the mirror. "You have your hair up in a towel and are wearing my bathrobe. I just got up and look like crap, since I haven't had a shower yet. We both look a sight."  
  
"Well, the day isn't getting any younger, and we've got work to do, so get busy already." Lynda took the towel off, and started brushing her hair.  
  
"Uh, I was waiting for you, in case you hadn't noticed."  
  
She put the hairbrush down and looked at him. "Spike, it's a woman's divine right to take forever in the bathroom. You guys just have to learn how to pick your spots." She picked the brush back up and set to work again.  
  
Spike eyed Lynda, who was pretending not to notice him. "You're up to something, Lynda. I know it."  
  
She put the brush down again, turned to face Spike and started tapping her foot in annoyance. "I think you stayed up too late. I've just given you two juicy invitations and you've missed them both. I expect better of you when we're married. Anyway, I'm all done and you can have the bathroom now." She turned to walk out, stopped, and made a slow turn back to face Spike. "You'll be wanting this, I suppose," she said, as she took off the bathrobe and handed it to him. She walked out of the bathroom laughing, leaving a gawking Spike in her wake.  
  
  
  
Sarah had been working at her desk in her Gazette office for an hour when she heard a man's voice in the office with her. "How long am I to be ignored?" he said in a haughty tone. She was shocked at first--she had not heard anyone come in through the door. The man was rather extraordinarily dressed in a long blue robe that went all the way to the floor, and had a cowl that covered the top of his head. He was an old man with a piercing glare that immediately set you on edge.  
  
"My apologies," she hastily said. "I did not hear you come in." She rose to greet him and offered her hand. "Sarah Jackson," she said. "Managing director of the Junior Gazette."  
  
The man shook her hand. "Cardinal Thriptos," he replied. "I am looking for Colonel Marriner. He's late."  
  
Sarah looked at her watch. "A little," she admitted. "Shall I give him a call and let him know you are here?"  
  
"Most thoughtful of you," he replied.  
  
She dialed his cellular phone. He usually carried one with him at all times, and he answered after only two rings. After exchanging greetings, she told him of the Cardinal's arrival.  
  
"Thriptos is here? That's strange."  
  
"Yes, and he's watching the clock, so I suggest you get over here now or sooner. He's not happy."  
  
"Is your office door closed?" he asked her.  
  
"Yes, why?"  
  
Suddenly, she heard the materialization of a TARDIS in her office. Thriptos allowed himself a faint smile. "I take it this is not a surprise to you, Sarah Jackson?"  
  
"My life is rather a surprise at the moment," she said. "But I know that's a TARDIS, if that's what you're asking."  
  
"I'm going to have to have a long talk with that boy. Would you excuse us?"  
  
"Sure, you can have the office," she said, wishing dearly she could hear what the old man was going to say. It was a rare moment indeed for someone to bully Paul. She left just as Marriner exited his TARDIS.  
  
"You fool," Thriptos growled, and threw a book at him.  
  
Paul caught the book. "I got what you wanted. What are you upset about now?"  
  
"Read a little. Pick any page."  
  
"If you wish." Paul opened the book and began reading. 'Why, Farmer Oak,' she said over the top, looking at him with rounded eyes, 'I never said I was going to marry you.' Paul stopped and closed his eyes, a look of horror spreading over his face. "Thomas Hardy."  
  
"She switched the book jackets. Obviously, she guessed you were going to try to steal it."  
  
"She's a good opponent. I'll just have to try a little harder next time."  
  
"This is a little more serious than another game of cops and robbers. We don't take damage to the time continuum as a joke. She'll have read the book by now. And if that isn't bad enough, your managing director knows of space-time travel, too. Why do you persist in interfering?"  
  
"I am an agent of yours," Paul said darkly. "Though I am well aware you personally were in favor of my dissolution. You lost that vote, and you know very well I am permitted some help while I am here. Sarah's character and discretion are impeccable. You have nothing to fear from her."  
  
"Lynda Day I do fear." Thriptos pointed a bony finger at him. "I don't like fear. I don't want to feel fear. So you are going to see to it that I don't feel any more fear or you won't feel anything more, ever."  
  
"You want me to do what, exactly?" Paul said quietly.  
  
"Eliminate her, I expect. You don't have many choices left, and you've bungled the ones you've had so far."  
  
"And how do I explain that away? Lynda's a well-known local figure. I can't just kill her and go back to watering the marigolds."  
  
"Not my problem. You want to be an agent, you have to deal with the business. That's how the game is played, son." He suddenly disappeared out of existence, leaving Marriner standing alone in the office, feeling very worried indeed.  
  
  
  
Bobby Campbell was flipping channels on his office's television set that afternoon, when he happened across the children's show "Crazy Stuff" and its hyperkinetic host-on-roller-skates, Zack. Bobby remembered how this unlikely forum had saved the Junior Gazette in the first place, and he allowed his eyes to linger perhaps a little longer than he otherwise might have before flipping up to the next channel. This was very good timing indeed, for he happened to witness the following:  
  
Zack and Cool Cat were sitting together on the big oversized couch. "Guess what, gang, we have for you today a pair of special guests to introduce today's Karate Pigs episode," Zack said.  
  
"Who could they be?" Cool Cat asked.  
  
From out of camera range, a male voice could be heard. "You know, Lynda, I've always thought the Karate Pigs were really great. My favorite pigs are Baby Pig and Scary Pig."  
  
"Baby Pig," exclaimed a female voice in mock horror. "Figures you'd go for the airhead."  
  
"Which pig do you like the best, then?"  
  
"Whichever one winds up pork chops."  
  
Cool Cat looked at Zack and exclaimed, "I know those voices!"  
  
The camera panned stage left and there stood Spike and Lynda beside the famous Crazy Stuff magic screen. "Today, the Karate Pigs take on the evil Doctor Dread and his sausage gun--" Spike began.  
  
"Sausage gun? That's pretty lame," Lynda interrupted.  
  
"I think it turns the pigs into sausage, Lynda. Anyway, grab a friend and sit back while the pigs do their thing." Spike said, pointing at the screen.  
  
"Oh, I get it. Sausages," Lynda said, a light bulb going off inside her head. "No guy should be without one. Can I borrow yours? You did say grab a friend."  
  
"Here?" Spike said incredulously. "Not while we're on camera!"  
  
"But the cartoon's already started. Nobody will see us."  
  
"In front of everyone?" Spike whispered.  
  
"They could use some excitement around here." Lynda said with a smile.  
  
In the control room, the technicians fell on the floor laughing. The camera switched to Zack and Cool Cat, who just stared at each other, and then back at Spike and Lynda in horror. The floor director was waving his arms frantically. Someone mercifully cut to the cartoon. Colin Matthews watched off-stage with visions of pounds floating in his head. Bobby Campbell did not flip the channel.  
  
  
  
In the Junior Gazette office, the phone rang and Tiddler grabbed it. After a short explanation, she yelled to anyone who happened to listen, "Get a TV in here now!" Someone rushed out to find one.  
  
Julie heard the fuss and wandered over to Tiddler's desk. "Story breaking?" she asked.  
  
"Better than a story, Julie," she said. "Spike and Lynda are doing 'Crazy Stuff' again."  
  
"No!" Julie yelled in delight. "What did they pull this time?"  
  
Tiddler whispered it to Julie, who started laughing. The TV was being hauled into the room, and Sarah and Paul happened to follow along behind.  
  
"We were going to go see Lynda now; are you coming?" Sarah asked.  
  
"Lynda's got plans of her own this afternoon, I think. Watch and weep, everybody." The television was plugged in and on 'Crazy Stuff' the games continued.  
  
"So, are you cool today," Lynda asked the cat.  
  
"Nine of my lives just flashed before my eyes," the cat dead-panned.  
  
"I have that problem a lot lately," Lynda nodded in agreement.  
  
"Now for those of you at home who have not yet died of shock and didn't see the last time Spike and Lynda came to visit us, here's a little clip of what you missed," Zack said as the TV picture cut to a taped flashback of Spike and Lynda slapping each other and then kissing.  
  
"Children's television?" Paul asked Sarah quizzically.  
  
Sarah shrugged. "You were expecting 'Sesame Street' or something?"  
  
"So," Zack gulped, "what brings you on the show today?"  
  
"Lynda heard you were still on the air and wanted to get you suspended," Spike said only half-jokingly.  
  
"We have an announcement to make," Lynda said, "and as you were kind enough to help us get back together, we thought we'd come and make it on your show."  
  
"Delighted," Cool Cat said in a distinctly undelighted monotone.  
  
"Nobody else would have us. We break too much furniture," Spike added.  
  
"Spike and I want to announce that we are officially engaged to be married," Lynda said.  
  
In the newsroom, Tiddler let out a squeal. Julie smiled, and looked at Sarah, who smiled back. Many people cheered or clapped. Marriner silently watched the screen and said nothing. 


	7. Chapter 7

STEALING EDEN, PART SEVEN  
  
Paul had left the Junior Gazette office quietly and without comment after seeing Spike and Lynda on television. Sarah noted an odd expression on his face, and couldn't figure out what should be troubling him. She didn't follow him back to his office right away, but waited a discreet amount of time before setting off to find him. Paul's office was "technically" the janitor's closet down the hall, although having a TARDIS masquerading as a janitor's closet tended to minimize the space problems janitor's closets traditionally have. She opened the door and stepped inside, experiencing the temporary disorientation of passing through the interface from the outside world to the TARDIS. The office inside was empty, and Sarah followed her instincts and set off down an interior corridor to find him. After a few twists and turns, she came upon the living room she recognized from the railroad car at Norbridge Station, complete with the big blue sofa. As before, there Paul was, asleep on the couch. A pot of tea and a half-filled cup sat on a table adjoining the sofa, as well as a vase containing a sprig of lilac flowers, which scented the air of the room in pleasant fashion. A smile came to her face, and she sat down on the floor beside the couch and began her vigil.  
  
One eye popped open. "Problem?" he asked drowsily.  
  
"I don't have one," she said. "I think you have, though."  
  
"You think well, Sarah Jackson," he said. The eye closed.  
  
"Is it something I can help you with?" Sarah asked. "I am your managing editor."  
  
He opened both eyes, gave a loud yawn, and sat up on the couch. "Yes, you are. Quite right. And I will not have my managing editor sitting on the floor at my feet." He motioned for her to take the other half of the couch, and she did as he asked.  
  
"I'm not sure how true it is that managing directors and their bosses should sit on couches and discuss problems, either." she noted. "I don't think Matt Kerr and Chrissie Stuart would work in that fashion."  
  
"Very true, and I suspect most business people do not," Paul replied. "I, however, am not raised in the finer arts of Business. I deal with people as I choose, and if formality demands it, I can be as tough as Rupert Murdoch or Bill Gates. I choose to handle things differently at this moment." He took a sip of tea from the cup on the table. "Peppermint," he said, "Much better hot, but always good for the stomach."  
  
"This has to do with Lynda, doesn't it?"  
  
Paul put down the cup and looked very impressed. "Very much so," he said. "My employers are not happy with me, and less so with her. They want something done."  
  
"I thought you were in charge of the paper. What employers are you talking about?" Sarah sounded puzzled.  
  
"Sarah, you don't know who I am, do you? I'm a lot more than just a rich guy who runs around buying newspapers. I have all this alien technology, and that comes at a rather steep price. The answers you want are such that I sometimes wish I could tell you, but I'm not sure you should know. You'd wind up getting hurt, too."  
  
His eyes were on the painting. She glanced there, too. "Let me decide that," Sarah quietly said. "I'm not a little girl, Paul."  
  
The eyes fell back on her. "No, you aren't." he said. "You are beautiful, intelligent---and curious." Paul sighed and took another sip of tea. "You want to know what I know? Here's a sample. Lynda Day did not die in the fire. She was rescued by an alien of the race known throughout the universe as the Time Lords, and while in the company of that alien, stole a book."  
  
"A book?" Sarah said incredulously.  
  
"Not just a book, Sarah. Her own autobiography that she'll write in 2012. She knows her own future, and has been using it to get the goods on her enemies and friends since she got hold of it. Like the little charade in the apartment where you walked in on them---Lynda knew you were going to be coming, so she arranged that bit of panto for your benefit. She also proposed to Spike based on that damn book."  
  
"Go on," Sarah said, wondering how Paul would have known about that!  
  
"Her little explosion in the Gazette office at Julie backfired on her, but she knows some things about Julie and Matt Kerr that aren't public knowledge yet. She was expecting to have a triumphant coup, but they outfoxed her this once. I don't think she'll be so sloppy next time."  
  
"Have you read the book, too?" Sarah asked. "You seem to know an awful lot about this nobody else does."  
  
"I was briefed by the Time Lords. They wanted me to 'fix' the problem for them, so I tried stealing the book back, and failed. Now they've narrowed my options a little. They want her dead."  
  
"No, you aren't going to do that!" Sarah said in disbelief.  
  
"Certainly not!" Paul exclaimed. "I can't. Lynda may be a pain, but she's not unredeemable, and certainly doesn't deserve to be exterminated for this. I can't do it, Sarah. Lynda and I are going to have to sort this out, and before the Time Lords decide to take matters into their own hands."  
  
"That's what your friend in the cowl was here to tell you," Sarah guessed. "Do the deed or else?"  
  
"Precisely. My relationship to the Time Lords is something of an embarrassment to them."  
  
"And what exactly is your relationship to them?" Sarah asked.  
  
"That's a long story, Sarah. If I tell you, you become endangered. If they erase me, they'd dearly love to erase anyone else who knew the connection. It is your choice, Sarah."  
  
"I know," she said. "And I want to know."  
  
"If I tell you, it stays between us."  
  
"You'd be taking a chance asking a reporter to keep a secret, wouldn't you?"  
  
"Yes, I am, Sarah. But I trust you. Please be worthy of that judgment."  
  
"I will," she said.  
  
  
  
The phone in Kate's hotel room rang, and Kate (who just walked through the door) ran to catch it.  
  
"Hi, Kate," the voice on the other end said. "Read your stuff."  
  
"What did you think, Julie?" Kate asked, still breathing heavily.  
  
"This is good," Julie said. "We need to corroborate Angie's stuff, though. Leslie McDowell is one of the financial team that is handling the buyout of the Junior Gazette. We can get her here. You dig up whatever you can there, but we don't have enough money to keep you there longer than another day. You two fly home tomorrow night."  
  
"Julie, we can't rush this. Do you realize the implications this has if we're right? We have to nail this story down tightly. No mistakes."  
  
"Kate, we aren't printing this. This is blackmail stuff in case Marriner tries to mess around with us. I wish I could give you this story, but Marriner's never going to let us run it and he'd likely do something to mess with our minds to stop it from happening."  
  
Kate protested loudly. "It isn't fair to us to send us all the way out here and then pull this stunt."  
  
"Life isn't fair," Julie spat. "If it was, I'd be the one Marriner was fawning over and not Sarah Jackson. This is an opening move in a long game. A very important one, but only a beginning."  
  
"Yeah," Kate said disgustedly. "And Kevin and I are just the pawns."  
  
  
  
"Once upon a time," Paul began. Sarah made a face. "Oh, come on! Give an old man his due here."  
  
"You need a little snappier beginning or I'm going to fall asleep!"  
  
"Very well. The Time Lords of the planet Gallifrey are an ancient race who live on the other side of the galaxy from us. They are humanoid in appearance--the man you met was one of them--but they have certain very key differences from humans. Time Lords are able to live for thousands of years, and when a body gets to be damaged or worn out, Time Lords have the ability to regenerate themselves a new body. Provided the damage isn't too great, mind you. If my head falls off, I don't have the power to grow a new one."  
  
"Couldn't you live forever doing that?"  
  
"There are only twelve regenerations possible. Then it truly is curtains for them. Time Lords are to some degree telepathic, are more resistant to extremes in environment, and heal very rapidly when ill or injured. Because of their advanced life-spans and some other complicated stuff I don't pretend to understand, Time Lords do not reproduce. When a new Time Lord is needed, one is grown from a gene loom. Or that has always been the theory, until recently."  
  
"Life without sex. There's an interesting concept," Sarah said sarcastically.  
  
"Not really. Time Lords are very boring. They debate a lot, pontificate even more, and scheme amongst themselves constantly. They observe the universe, but don't officially allow themselves to interfere." Sarah raised an eyebrow. "Officially," Marriner continued, "Is a lot different from reality. I ought to know.  
  
There was a brilliant scientist that ran afoul of the Time Lords once, by the name of Angelus. Angelus was a great geneticist who thought he'd try to hybridize the Time Lords with another species to create a better Time Lord. This idea got him blackballed from Gallifrey, and he went off to pursue his theories using a variety of alien species. All of his ideas failed, until he turned up on Earth and tried it on a human child he happened to kidnap from a family he killed to cover up his crime."  
  
"You," Sarah said quietly. Paul nodded.  
  
"I am no longer fully human. I'm not fully a Time Lord, either. I have some of the characteristics of each. I do have the ability to regenerate, which is why I survived being shot. Jennifer's wounds were too great. She never had a chance to regenerate."  
  
"Did Angelus create both of you?" Sarah asked.  
  
"We met, fell in love, and got married. What neither of us knew was that the modifications Angelus made have the ability to be passed from person to person in much the same way AIDS can. Time Lord biology is much more advanced than your own, and tries to assert itself when instituted into a new host. That normally kills the host, or makes it rather ill at the very least. Jennifer got quite sick on our honeymoon, but recovered after a month We didn't know until we started being able to read each other's minds that anything had happened. She became a Time Lord hybrid just as I did. Only we didn't have very much time together.  
  
"So what happened to Angelus?" Sarah asked.  
  
"The Time Lords got wind of Angelus after a few years and took him away. There was a great debate about what to do with me--whether I should be allowed to live or be killed. I told the Time Lords I would be happy to continue as an agent in residence to assist in any problems that might occur on Earth. They agreed, with the stipulation that I was not to use Angelus' TARDIS to travel in time and space. I cheat a little on that account, but I don't go hopping around the universe or off to visit Julius Caesar or anything complicated like that."  
  
  
  
"I thought you'd never call," Kate told Lynda.  
  
"It has been rather busy here. Spike and I have been touring talk shows all day telling the world we're going to be married. I haven't had a chance to get home for a while, and I just saw your fax."  
  
"You two are going to actually do it?" Kate exclaimed, after a screech of delight.  
  
"Absolutely, Kate. No doubts."  
  
"I'm happy for you both," Kate replied.  
  
"Enough adulation. We're paying for the call, let's get to work."  
  
"What do you think of what we've discovered so far."  
  
"I think we have a problem," Lynda replied firmly. "Marriner left a message asking for a meeting tomorrow morning at the offices. Quote: 'We need to discuss your future.' Bad news."  
  
"One on one meeting?"  
  
"No, he's bringing Sarah with him. Fat lot of good that will do me. I can twirl Sarah around my finger like nobody can, but if he's what we think he is, I'm not gonna have a prayer with either of them."  
  
"Julie says we can't print it no matter what we find."  
  
"Fool!" Lynda spat. "We have to get this story out to somebody, even if it means I have to write it by hand and set off the fire alarm at the school again to print it. This is too important for all of us not to follow up. What's she doing this for anyway if she won't run it-- blackmail?"  
  
"Yeah, that word did come up."  
  
"Amateur hack! I'm going to really enjoy bursting her bubble."  
  
"One more thing, Lynda. Julie says the McDowell girl is one of the financial team on the Junior Gazette buyout."  
  
"Is she now?" Lynda said, interest piquing. "I think I'll do a little investigating myself, if that's the case."  
  
"Assuming Julie doesn't beat you to her, and she'll even talk to us. Angie seemed to think she'd keep quiet."  
  
"We won't know until we ask.."  
  
  
  
Night had fallen, and the Junior Gazette staff had departed for their homes. Sarah had left too, her head spinning with new ideas and new concepts. Only Marriner was left now, until his peace was disturbed by Sophie and Laura barging in waving a piece of paper.  
  
"News from America...."  
  
"Kate and Kevin are there. They've met Angie Becker...."  
  
"What are we going to do?"  
  
Paul held up his hand to still the commotion. "The end game is beginning, you two. From this point on, you stick close to me and keep the guns loaded. Sophie, get Brigadier Crichton from UNIT on the phone. I'll want to speak to him immediately. After that, get Lynda Day on the phone personally and tell her tomorrow, 8AM, Sarah's office. No discussions. Laura, check to make sure that the cloaking devices are working and that no one will recognize you. I want you both at the Gazette building tomorrow as insurance against Thriptos and his Agency goons trying anything."  
  
Sophie smartly saluted and went off to do her job. Laura lingered a bit. "Do you want the microphones taping tomorrow in the office?"  
  
Marriner nodded. "I also want a camera rolling in there with a feed to the TARDIS communication systems. Whatever happens in that office gets broadcast live to the universe, and if the Time Lords get caught on Candid Camera, so much the worse for them."  
  
Laura gingerly put her hand on Paul's. "You don't sound like you're going to win this one. Why?"  
  
"Two problems, one room." Paul turned the teacup upside down, looking in vain for one last drop. "Ties up the loose ends in a hurry," he shrugged. He gave Laura a hug. "We may not win this one, but we'll go down fighting, right?"  
  
"Absolutely, sir." Laura saluted and left the room.  
  
Paul returned the salute, but when Laura looked back as she was leaving the room, she noticed his gaze had departed from her and gone to the painting of his wife on the wall. "Circles," he said quietly. "Always traveling in circles." 


	8. Chapter 8

stealing Eden, part eight  
  
Julie was accustomed to being the first one in the office in the mornings and the last one out at night. Such was the lot of editors, and she sometimes wondered how Lynda managed to thrive on the work for the years she sat in the big chair. Life was a lot less fun now; this was for sure. The lights were already on when Julie arrived, and Sarah was sitting in the editor's chair paging through some papers on the desk.  
  
"Anything interesting?" Julie asked.  
  
Sarah looked up with a decidedly ominous frown on her face. "You're up to something, aren't you?"  
  
Julie shrugged. "I just got here. I haven't had time to cause trouble yet." She sat down in Tiddler's chair, and Sarah tossed the papers across the desk at her.  
  
"Looks like Billy spent the night snooping about for information on Leslie McDowell. He was nice enough to send it through to your printer, which I happened to notice on my way in this morning."  
  
"What of it?" Julie said non-chalantly. "I don't trust her any more than I do Colin. I at least know Colin, and when I read these, I'll know a little more about Leslie."  
  
"Yeah, and I'm the Queen Mum. I don't suppose Kate and Kevin are in America on holiday, either. A bit of an expensive jaunt for our budget."  
  
"Where did you come up with that idea?"  
  
"Kate phoned Colin to get some money sent over. Colin didn't know what they were doing there, and phoned me. I phoned Kate."  
  
"I bloody well told him! He wanted to go himself, the cheeky bastard." Julie's calm was beginning to break down.  
  
"Let me get a few things straight here. You are editor, and to the extent that you can run this paper in the interests of our readers, you have editorial control over what goes in the paper. Snooping around in the owner's past and the past of his associates is out of bounds and it stops now!"  
  
"Sarah," Julie said, "if the owner is something other than what he claims to be, it is the public's right to know. So far, nothing about him adds up and everything points to something odd going on around here. If you'd quit looking at him with those adoring eyes of yours, you'd see that."  
  
Sarah looked like she'd been slapped. "I know considerably more than you or anyone else does about him, and I'm not at all worried about the situation."  
  
"What HE says about it, Sarah. Is that the truth? Give us a chance to find out and if we find nothing to worry about, we'll gladly agree with you." Julie shook her head. "The Sarah I used to know hated violence and guns. Look at you! You're benefactor is an Army officer (of dubious rank) who has his associates wandering around the office packing pistols. And you say nothing. Not a damn word of protest. He looks at you and smiles and gives you a job and some baubles, and you sit up and beg for him."  
  
"I grew up," Sarah said with more force than conviction. "Things are different for him..."  
  
"Yes, they are. Did you ever ask yourself why?"  
  
"On occasion," Sarah answered, "when not trying to figure out what I'm going to do with Lynda today."  
  
"Today?" It was Julie's turn to feel uncomfortable. "I had assumed she was going to take sometime to recover her senses. She's not well."  
  
"Mr. Marriner seems to think she is well enough to plead her case. I don't know what he will decide. I have stated my position on the issue, and he's going to decide for himself, but he wanted to hear her side of the story." Sarah cracked a smile. "Any evidence she has that your conduct has not been satisfactory will be listened to with great interest."  
  
"She has no evidence, Sarah. Nothing. Kerr will back up everything I say, just as he did at when Lynda first started spouting that nonsense."  
  
"That's what HE says about it," Sarah said with a faint air of amusement. "And she has far more knowledge than is really safe for her to have. So do I. So do you, Julie. Watch your step."  
  
"Is that a threat, Sarah?"  
  
Nervous laughter from Sarah met that question. "We're in over our heads, all of us."  
  
  
  
Leslie McDowell sat at a vanity brushing her hair when she realized a face other than hers was reflecting in the mirror. She recognized it immediately from the photographs in the newsroom: Lynda Day was in her bedroom.  
  
"What are you doing here?" Leslie hissed. "Breaking into my hotel room isn't going to win you any points."  
  
"I need information, not lectures." Lynda said bluntly. "I want to know what's going on here. I've got a meeting with your boss in ninety minutes, and I want to know how to handle negotiating with an alien."  
  
Leslie's face turned a ghastly white. "Alien?" she whispered. "You must be joking."  
  
"I don't think so, and you know it. You lived across the fence from the Marriner house in 1972. You've had a ringside seat for the whole thing from day one, and that's why you're on the payroll. How much did it cost to buy your silence, Leslie?"  
  
"Enough to know not to say anything to you."  
  
"Or what?" Lynda said, looking Leslie squarely in the eye. "Leslie, I have a meeting with him. I have a certain alien artifact which I have reason to believe he wants very badly. Do I fear him or not?"  
  
"Alien artifact? You?" Leslie got up from the vanity and walked to where Lynda was standing. "What exactly have you got?"  
  
"A book I took from the Doctor. Not that it will mean anything to you."  
  
"On the contrary, it does," Leslie said. "Does this book have something to do with the future?" Lynda nodded. Leslie shook her head. "God help us if that's what this is all about. You stupid fool, why would you bring this down on our heads?" she shouted at Lynda.  
  
"Bring what? What have I done? I did this for Spike, not to---"  
  
"Don't apologize to me. You'd just as well apologize to the wall. Paul wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that damn book of yours. The Time Lords want that book back, and if they don't get it, they're liable to take it out on all of us who ever got to know Paul over his lifetime. He only barely talked them into letting him survive when they discovered he existed. You have done some snooping to find out about me, and now that I know, they'll probably know. When they know we all know, maybe they'll decide to just erase all of us."  
  
"You make it sound like they are gods or something," Lynda said. "Say the magic word, and 'poof' we disappear."  
  
"Lynda, they can go back in time and tweak it enough so that my parents never met and I would never have existed. That scares me--does it scare you? Look in the mirror, Lynda, and you might see yourself for the last time. No Lynda, no Spike, no Leslie, no Paul--no Earth, if they had a particularly bad morning and woke on the wrong side of the bed. How is this for a negotiating position, Lynda Day? Get on your knees and beg for your life and hope to God in heaven that it is enough."  
  
"And yet you work for him."  
  
"I have no choice. My parents lived next door, and he and I played in the sandbox as children. When it happened, I was there. Not my choice. I saw Angelus kill his parents. Four years old, and twenty years later I still see that at night. Paul can pay me all the money in the world and it still won't make that vision go away or stop me from screaming. Paul was arguing for my life as well as his own, and I owe him everything. I could never turn my back on him, and if I did, I'd lose the only safety net I have, weak though it is."  
  
Lynda could no longer look Leslie in the eye. Leslie was fighting back the tears, and losing the battle she'd fought for ages.  
  
"I exist in the future," Lynda said to herself.  
  
"You do now," Leslie said. "That is no guarantee you will always."  
  
Lynda gazed at her own reflection in the mirror. "All this for three little words," she said softly.  
  
  
  
8 AM came and the newsroom came to a complete stop. Tiddler was at her desk, and looked up to see Julie's eyes flick towards the door. Sarah and Marriner walked in together, with Marriner stopping at Frazz's desk to whisper something in his direction. Julie's expression soured, and Sarah glared a warning back at her that Tiddler interpreted as "Stay out of this." The pair walked over to Sarah's office and began having a discussion that was mostly out of earshot, although Tiddler thought Marriner was trying to get Sarah to stay out of the interview as well. She refused pointedly, and this seemed to upset him. Two of Marriner's female guards were lurking about the newsroom, setting everyone on edge.  
  
Slightly two minutes later, Lynda and Spike walked in, hand in hand. Spike looked his old self, and his smile brightened more than a few faces. Lynda was a different matter--she appeared nervous, in a way the old Lynda did when she had much on her mind. The two of them exchanged words and Lynda kissed Spike. Sarah, Marriner, and Lynda walked into the meeting room and closed the door.  
  
  
  
"Have a seat, Lynda," Sarah said.  
  
"Is this a formal interview on my future with the Gazette--or just a formal interview on my future, period?" Lynda asked as she sat down.  
  
"Rather the latter, I'm afraid," Marriner said. "You've read the book, I suppose."  
  
"Might as well have," she said. "I'm bored being at home with nothing to do."  
  
"Figures you wouldn't leave me an out," Marriner said, shaking his head. He reached inside his suitcoat pocket and pulled out a small handgun and pointed it at Lynda. Sarah opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came out. He then dropped the gun on the table and pushed it towards Lynda, who picked it up and put it into her lap. Sarah relaxed.  
  
"We have an understanding now," Marriner said. "Whatever happens, happens because we work it out together, not by force. I don't know how we get out of this mess, but I'm open to ideas."  
  
"Leslie said all of us are at risk now. That was never what I intended," Lynda said.  
  
"I know. Time travel is a tempting proposition. I wanted dearly to go back and change something so that my wife would be alive now, but I don't know enough about this business to do it right. Maybe something good that came out of Jennifer's death outweighs the value of her life. I don't know, and I don't have the right to decide that. Only God does."  
  
"Would giving the book back help?" Sarah asked.  
  
"Not if she's read it. Maybe we could talk them into erasing her memories of it." Marriner said. "It's something I can put forward as a deal, if you give the book back in exchange."  
  
  
  
The newsroom was not totally still now. Spike and Frazz were talking amongst themselves. Tiddler noticed Leslie McDowell wander in much later than usual and go immediately into the bathroom. The two guards outside the door stood silently watching over the sea of faces looking back at them. After a minute, Leslie emerged and went into Colin's office, carrying a strange plastic gadget. Jane walked into the bathroom, and a scream soon rang out from inside. Spike, Frazz, and the guards ran for the bathroom, as did Julie and Tiddler. Nobody saw Leslie emerge from Colin's office and enter the meeting room, and when she closed the door, Marriner looked at her sadly.  
  
"The first victim, Thriptos?" he asked.  
  
"The end-game begins, Marriner," the thing that had been Leslie said with a smile.  
  
"Distraction?" Marriner asked sadly.  
  
"To draw Sophie and Laura away from the door. I really like these holographic image projectors of yours. They work like a charm, and I don't have to wear a mask." Thriptos said, briefly turning off the projector and revealing his own face for a moment.  
  
"You didn't have to kill her. Those projectors would have given you any image."  
  
"Oh, but this one is so much more painful. Wouldn't you agree, Lynda?"  
  
Lynda said nothing. Thriptos grinned even wider now. "So David Jefford was bad as a memory? Look at my face, Lynda Day. You have very little time left and what little you have is going to belong to the late Leslie McDowell, whom you really did have a part in killing."  
  
"I didn't kill her. You did."  
  
"Why are we all here? Your little book, which you stole. Your own insecurities rising to consume you. Your worst nightmares come to life."  
  
"We were negotiating a way out of this, Thriptos. I can still get you a decent ending if you'll only let me." Marriner said.  
  
"On terms that will yet again give you and your friends an out. We can't leave any more loose ends to trip over in the future." Thriptos reached into Marriner's pocket and pulled out another gun. "Note how much he trusts you, Lynda Day."  
  
"Note how much I trust you, Thriptos," Marriner said. "I think that more relevant."  
  
"Any last words before dying, Marriner? Sarah? Lynda?"  
  
Marriner got up and pulled Sarah up from her chair. Marriner looked sadly into her eyes. "Wish it could have ended better for you. I'm sorry."  
  
"Me, too," she said, stifling a tear. "I was almost ready to believe in miracles."  
  
"I'll trade you my life for theirs, Thriptos. I'm the one you've always wanted." Marriner said, not looking at him at all, but staring deeply into Sarah's eyes.  
  
"Too late for deals now," Thriptos said, cocking the trigger.  
  
"Close your eyes, Sarah," Paul said and kissed her. "See you on the other side." She never felt the bullet that sent her to the floor, nor saw the bullet that tore through Paul Marriner's body. They fell to the floor together, and together they lay in a growing pool of blood. Thriptos fired at Lynda, but she ducked and the shot missed. The door to the meeting room flew open and Spike and the two guards barged in. Thriptos turned to fire at Spike, but suddenly fell forward with a look of surprise and hit the floor. Behind the body, Lynda stood transfixed at the scene unfolding before her, holding the gun Marriner gave her in peace, and dropping it to the floor unconsciously as a last act of war.  
  
The guards looked at the body, saw the projector, and suddenly began firing into the corpse.  
  
"What the hell are you doing!" Spike screamed at them, as he checked Sarah's body for signs of life.  
  
"Aliens can be hard to kill," Sophie shouted back.  
  
"Is she---" Lynda stammered.  
  
"Not yet." Spike shouted. In the background, screaming was heard. A siren was wailing in the distance, growing louder by the second.  
  
The guards had ceased their gruesome task and were checking Marriner's body. Both were crying, and both screamed when the body spoke one last word. "Circles," it said. Then before the eyes of Sophie and Laura and Lynda Day, who stood frozen from shock and could do nothing, the body bleeding on the floor suddenly shimmered and rippled and renewed itself in the blink of an eye. The blonde hair turned black, and hazel eyes turned blue. The body seemed to grow taller. One hand reached out and gripped Sophie's, clutching it tightly. "The future is in Frazz's hands now," it said in a voice that sounded more tenor than Marriner's deep bass. The grip loosened, and the body slumped. 


	9. Chapter 9

stealing Eden, part nine  
  
The next few hours were mass chaos within the Gazette building. The ambulance crews were allowed in to take Sarah to the hospital, but Sophie and Laura refused to allow Marriner to be moved and refused to allow the police in until UNIT personnel had arrived first. As they had been placed on standby, this only took half an hour at most, but in those minutes of waiting, most of the personnel in the news room feared for their safety. Sarah had been unconscious when she was transported from the scene, and did not see Detective Inspector Hibbert waiting in the corridor outside. When UNIT arrived, Brigadier Charles Crichton assumed command of the building and allowed the second ambulance crew to depart with Marriner. Hibbert and his officers were allowed in briefly to photograph the scene and to supervise the removal of the late Laura McDowell from the restroom. The dead body in the meeting room was confiscated by UNIT personnel and Hibbert's forensic team was permitted only to shoot pictures of it after Sophie had disabled the holographic projector. The staff of the Junior Gazette were interviewed by UNIT personnel and the faxed copies of Kevin and Kate's notes were confiscated. At Billy Homer's apartment, soldiers confiscated his computer. In Cedar Rapids, Kevin and Kate were placed under protective custody by some military police officers from Fort Mitchell. Lynda returned a copy of Thomas Hardy's Far From the Maddening Crowd to Sophie and Laura without a protest, and after receiving it, the two of them were allowed to leave the room by Crichton.. Frazz typed out a story he'd written detailing the tragic invasion of the Junior Gazette offices by a delusional old man who had strangled to death one of the Marriner Group's accountants and shot former Junior Gazette reporter Sarah Jackson and critically wounded her. Crichton ordered it released as the official version of events. Hibbert was left to mold whatever pieces he could to fit the puzzle. The piece that was Marriner was conveniently missing from the puzzle, and Hibbert was ordered to never reveal the presence of one of UNIT's top agents, nor why the body that was wheeled out on a stretcher looked nothing like the man who had walked in an hour before. The Brigadier himself delivered the reading of the Official Secrets Act to the assembled members of the news team, Hibbert's investigators, and the members of the senior paper who had arrived on the scene before Sophie and Laura could seal the room. No one would ever be allowed to tell of the events that transpired on this day under penalty of imprisonment for life, and with the soldiers present to back up Crichton's words, no one raised a voice in protest. Once again, Inspector Hibbert was left in the dark.  
  
Sarah Jackson's surgery was successful, and one bullet was removed from her chest, where it had ricocheted off a rib bone and grazed her lung. She regained consciousness that evening. Paul Marriner arrived at the hospital in a coma that appeared to have no visible cause or explanation. A military doctor on the UNIT staff said the coma was self-induced and that he should be kept under observation and nothing else. Guards kept vigil over the patients that night, with Sophie and Laura handling the chores for their boss and Sarah's grief-stricken parents watching over her under the watchful eyes of a UNIT sergeant. Lynda and Spike spent the night in the hospital waiting room, keeping their own vigil along with Tiddler and Matt Kerr. Mr. Sullivan joined them later that night, and Julie Craig came to take morning watch when Kerr and Sullivan left. By noon on the next day, Paul had awakened briefly and asked if Sarah had survived. When told she had, he smiled and went back to sleep for another four hours. That night, he declared himself well, and ordered the hospital to discharge him. He watched over Sarah and her parents that night in the garb of a UNIT soldier, unnoticed by anyone other than the medical staff, who were under orders not to say anything.  
  
Early the next morning, Sarah's parents went home for a brief time. Sophie appeared in the lobby and summoned Lynda to come with her. The last act was about to be played out..  
  
When Lynda entered the room, Sarah was awake and alert. Sarah smiled at Lynda, who went to her bedside and clutched her hand. The guard stood in the shadows, out of Lynda's immediate vision.  
  
"I didn't think I was going to be able to do this," Lynda said crying. "When he shot you, I..."  
  
"That's over now, Lynda," Sarah said warmly. She wiped Lynda's tears with her own hand and said nothing for a minute or two. Finally, she replied, "I think you look worse for wear than I do, and I'm the one he shot."  
  
"How many more people do I have to kill before I get my life straightened out, Sarah?"  
  
"I heard you shot the gunman," Sarah said, trying to change the subject. "That was very brave of you."  
  
"Too late for Leslie. Almost too late for Marriner or you." Her eyes drifted back into the shadows. "You!" she cried, pointing at the guard.  
  
Sarah followed her glance and saw the guard nervously twitch. An odd expression came over her face: surprise and joy, but with a hint of confusion. "Paul," she said. "That's you, isn't it? I don't know how I know, but I thought you were here with me."  
  
Paul stepped from the shadows. "How are you, Sarah?"  
  
"In pain," she said simply, and stared at him. "You weren't kidding about that regeneration stuff, were you? Did you see it happen, Lynda?"  
  
Lynda nodded. "I don't know how to describe it. Kind of creepy, especially with the body getting taller as it happened."  
  
"Pain in the butt, that," Paul said. "I'm going to have to junk a whole wardrobe full of clothes that don't fit any more." He looked at Sarah. "What do you think? I'm not sure about the hair."  
  
"Black looks good on you," Sarah said with a smile. "Looks a little like James Armstrong, doesn't he, Lynda?"  
  
"James never looked this good in his own dreams," Lynda chuckled. She was about to whisper something in Sarah's ear when she turned back to face Paul. "Don't even think of trying to read my mind," she said. "This is girl talk." Whatever it was that Lynda whispered, Sarah blushed a little and laughed despite the pain of doing so. Paul looked the other way and whistled a little tune.  
  
"You are taking this rather calmly. I'm surprised." Paul said.  
  
Sarah and Lynda exchanged glances. It was Sarah who spoke. "I believe in miracles now," she said.  
  
Lynda was more pragmatic. "What a bore. All those weird looking aliens people claim to have seen, and I meet you and the Doctor. At least he dresses weird enough to be an alien. Julie needs to get you some style."  
  
From the back of the room, Sophie couldn't resist opining at this. "Lynda Day giving clothing advice? Now I've seen everything." Lynda flashed a look of annoyance at her for interfering.  
  
There came a voice from the shadows that did not belong to Paul. "As we are all here," the voice said in a clipped, authoritarian tone, "we may as well begin this meeting."  
  
Paul nodded to the cowled figure who emerged from the shadows. "Welcome to Earth, Castellan."  
  
"I don't much care for the atmosphere," he said.  
  
"The Castellan is the head of law enforcement on Gallifrey, home planet of the Time Lords," Paul said, by way of explanation. "I expect he's here to tell us how the High Council is really mad at Thriptos for exposing the seamier side of Time Lord machinations to the universe."  
  
"The High Council regrets the incident. Thriptos was a loose cannon acting without our authority, and all Time Lords are greatly saddened by the events that transpired."  
  
"The official party line?" Marriner asked.  
  
"We had to say something. Your little broadcast job has the entire Third Zone in an uproar. You have no idea what you've done."  
  
"This is my home, and these are my friends," Marriner said. "I don't take kindly to having to face extermination because you don't approve of my existence. You wanted me to keep an eye on this world, and when I try to honor that trust, you betray me."  
  
"Your existence is troublesome, but we seem to be stuck with it now. I wish you would quit spreading the news of your heritage about so freely."  
  
"My heritage is on this world, not Gallifrey, Castellan. I only tell those I trust, and who are necessary to carry out my role here. Same as it has always been, except Leslie is dead now."  
  
"That was regrettable," the Castellan said, and quickly changed the subject. "The Doctor's carelessness is the cause of this mess, and we will keep a much closer eye on him now. He will make a mistake and when he does, he will have to answer for his meddling."  
  
Lynda spoke up at this. "Without the Doctor's meddling, I would be dead."  
  
The Castellan shook his head. "You don't know that. If anything, your resourcefulness is a credit to you. I should think you capable of finding your way out of anything. As indeed you have here," he reminded her.  
  
"Yes," Paul said. "What have you decided of her fate?"  
  
"She will be made to forget whatever she read in that book that pertains to her own future, although she will remember the Doctor rescuing her and her part in the events that unfolded as a result. As for Mr. Thomson, it seems Miss Day is stuck with him 'for better or worse' as that belongs to the past now. I wish him luck. He'll need it."  
  
Lynda looked nervously at Paul. "But what about Julie and Kerr and...." Lynda began protesting, but Marriner raised a finger to his lips and shook his head.  
  
"Your future will unfold as it was meant to, and you'll discover everything you know now in time. Knowing too much is as much a curse as knowing too little--that was the curse of Eden, and it will be your curse as long as you try to walk a path not even Time Lords dare tread." Paul spoke quietly but firmly, and the Castellan nodded his head as he spoke.  
  
"Wait a minute," Lynda exclaimed. "This is my life we're discussing here and you can't just---" She stopped speaking abruptly and looked a bit lost. "I had this really cutting remark, but I can't remember what it was now," she said.  
  
Sarah gently squeezed her hand. "You've been waiting around for me too long. Go get Spike and whomever else is down there pacing the waiting room and bring them up here. When we get all the words said and tears cried, you all need to get home and get some rest and get back to running the Junior Gazette."  
  
"I think Julie won't be too thrilled to have me back. I said some terrible things about her, and I don't know why." Lynda wore a puzzled expression on her face as she said this.  
  
"Lynda, you have been through so much, you just got all stressed out and freaked a little," Paul said. "Julie will understand. We're going to have to work things out on the Gazette, but that's something for another day. I've got to take Leslie's body back to America, so nothing is going to happen until I get back. Just take a few days off and get your thoughts together. Rest is good."  
  
"Work is better," Lynda said. "I want to go to the funeral. I'm partly responsible for Leslie, too." A pained expression crossed her face. 'Partly' was an understatement, she thought.  
  
Paul looked at Sarah, who nodded her approval. "Permission granted, Lynda. Now go get the others and bring them here. Give us a few minutes together with the Castellan if you could. He and I have some matters to discuss." Lynda nodded and left the room.  
  
"You will take the book and Thriptos' body, I assume," Paul asked the Castellan. Sophie walked forward and presented the book to the Cardinal, who took it from her.  
  
"I have already collected the body. Your guards will be having a fit over that which will reach your attention very shortly. I suggest you do something about rectifying the need for all these holographic projectors, as well. I need not remind you about the dangers of leaving such things out of their proper place in the time stream."  
  
"Perhaps you should. The Doctor makes this look so easy," Paul said quietly.  
  
"The Doctor has been meddling for half a millennium. You've been at it for ten. I expect it gets easier, but you see how even experience can breed carelessness. Mind you, you shouldn't be meddling at all. I have to tell you that."  
  
"Party line?" Marriner smiled.  
  
"Absolutely," the Castellan said with a wink of his eye. "Sophie, outside and guard the door." She saluted and left the room instantly.  
  
"Well trained," the Castellan said with admiration. "You must see to it that your associates be restored their place in the open."  
  
"Yes, you should. Sophie and Laura deserve it." This thought crossed the minds of Paul and the Castellan simultaneously. They looked at each other with puzzled faces, and then slowly turned to face Sarah, who looked rather sheepish.  
  
The Castellan looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Paul, you haven't done anything to her, have you?"  
  
"Never!" Paul hissed.  
  
"When Thriptos shot the two of you, were you together?"  
  
"Yes," Paul said, not following the Castellan's line of questioning.  
  
"He saved my life," Sarah said. "Thriptos couldn't get a clear shot with Paul in the way."  
  
"I expect Paul's presence has done more than that. She recognized you, Paul, but she was unconscious when you regenerated, so she never saw your new body until now. I think when you were both bleeding, it must have happened."  
  
Sarah looked confused, but then suddenly remembered something Paul had said. "Like AIDS," she said in a whisper, looking at Paul and feeling very ill.  
  
Paul looked at the Castellan. "Could it pass that way?"  
  
"Perhaps," the Castellan said. "This is an unusual case. Her state of unconsciousness at the time of the shooting seems to have allowed the process to take hold in a less violent reaction. I'm sure there will be a study of it when the facts are learned. You should keep an eye on her until you know for sure, but I think the process is underway."  
  
"I have the worst feeling you are going to tell me what I think you are, but I want to hear you say it," Sarah said.  
  
Paul gulped. The Castellan looked at him and shook his head. "Don't look at me, Paul. This is your friend."  
  
"Sarah," Paul said, taking her by the hand, "you're one of us now."  
  
"Welcome to Eden," she said quietly, and closed her eyes. 


End file.
